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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

放

fàng
to release; to free; to liberate
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 攴
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *paŋʔ, *paŋs): phonetic 方 (OC *paŋ, *baŋ) + semantic 攵 (“hand, action”) – an action, release.

Compare Tibetan སྤོང (spong, “to abandon; to let go”), Burmese ဖင့် (hpang., “to delay”) (Hill, 2019).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese方 “side; aspect; party”
  • meaningChinese攴 “to hit lightly; to tap”

Related: Tibetan སྤོང, Burmese ဖင့်

Words built on it: 放心, 放假, 播放, 放下, 解放

Meanings

character
  1. to release; to free; to liberate
  2. to let out; to let go; to launch; to shoot
  3. to put; to place; to set down
  4. to lay aside
  5. to open out
  6. to expand; to enlarge; to extend

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

放：逐也。从攴方聲。凡放之屬皆从放。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 從約束或緊張狀態中解脫、鬆開。 例：放開、放鬆、放心　◎
  2. 捨棄、拋開。 例：放棄
  3. 解散。 例：放學、放工
  4. 放縱、任由。 例：放聲高歌、放言高論
  5. 發出。 例：施放、放款、放風聲
  6. 開、展。 例：心花怒放、百花開放

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

How 放 was written 字形演變

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