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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

挑

/tʰi̯ɑʊ̯⁵⁵/
to pick; to select; to choose
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 手
  • 9 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *l̥ʰaːw, *l̥ʰeːw, *l'eːwʔ): semantic 手 (“hand”) + phonetic 兆 (OC *l'ewʔ).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese手 “hand (Classifier: 隻／只 m c mn; 雙／双 m mn; 對／对 c)”
  • soundChinese兆 “cracks formed on heated tortoise plastrons and mammal bones used in ancient divination”
    • componentChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
    • componentChinese水 “water (Classifier: 瓶 m; 樽 c; 滴 m c; 池 m c; 盆 m c; 杯 m c)”

Meanings

character
  1. to pick; to select; to choose
  2. to nitpick
  3. to carry (something) on a shoulder pole
  4. a rising stroke (㇀)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

挑：撓也。从手兆聲。一曰摷也。《國語》曰：“卻至挑夭。”

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 引動、舉起。 例：挑眉立目、挑起簾子
  2. 用長形或尖形器具撥弄。 例：挑火、挑刺、挑燈夜讀
  3. 一種刺繡針法。用針挑起經線或緯線，將線從下穿過。 例：挑花
  4. 一種彈奏指法。手指反手回撥稱為「挑」。 例：輕攏慢撚抹復挑，初為霓裳後六么。（唐．白居易〈琵琶行〉）
  5. 搬弄、煽動。 例：挑撥、挑戰
  6. 引誘、逗弄。 例：挑逗、挑弄 

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 挑 was written 字形演變

  1. 挑 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 挑 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 挑