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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

支

zhī
to support; to bear; to sustain
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 支
  • 4 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 又 (“hand”) + 十 (“(half of 竹) branch of bamboo”) – a branch.

Similar but unrelated to 攴, 丈, 尹 and 父.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-ka(ː)k (“fork, branch, crotch”). Cognate with the first syllable of Burmese ခက်ရင်း (hkak-rang:, “fork”), as well as the following words (STEDT):

* 枝 (OC *kje, “branch (of tree); to resist, go astray”)

* 肢 (OC *kje, “limb (of body)”)

* 翅 (OC *qʰjes, “wing”)

* 歧 (OC *ɡe, “bifurcating, forked (as of a road)”)

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese又 “again; once more”
  • ideaChinese竹 “bamboo (Classifier: 枝; 棵 m; 根 m; 轆／辘 c)”

Related: Burmese ခက်ရင်း

Words built on it: 支持, 支付, 支出, 支援

Meanings

character
  1. to support; to bear; to sustain
  2. to disburse; to pay; to defray
  3. to prop up; to put up
  4. to send away; to put off somebody
  5. branch; limb; offshoot; subdivision
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

支：去竹之枝也。从手持半竹。凡支之屬皆从支。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 撐持、維持。 例：支撐、支持、體力不支
  2. 旁系、從主系分出的。 例：旁支、分支、支流
  3. 付款、給付。 例：收支、開支、支付
  4. 領取。 例：他因有急用而向公司預支了一個月的薪水。
  5. 調度、差遣。 例：支配、支使
  6. 分散、殘缺。 例：支離破碎

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

How 支 was written 字形演變

  1. 支 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 支 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 支 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 支