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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

掃

/sɑʊ̯²¹⁴/
to clean with a broom; to sweep clean
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 手
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) – a 手 (“hand”) with a 帚 (“broomstick”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese扌 “left radical form of 手 (shǒu).”
  • partChinese帚 “broom; broomstick”
    • componentChinese肀 “hand grabbing hair”
    • componentChinese冖 “cover”
    • componentChinese巾 “a square item of cloth; towel; kerchief”

Meanings

character
  1. to clean with a broom; to sweep clean
  2. to clear away; to exterminate; to eliminate
  3. to go on a punitive expedition; to stabilise (a political situation); to conquer
  4. to sweep over; to sweep away; to dart a look at
  5. to scan (a code)
  6. to offer sacrifices and pay respect to a dead person at the tomb

國語辭典 definitions

  1. →掃帚

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

How 掃 was written 字形演變

  1. 掃 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 掃 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 掃 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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 掃