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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

敢

gǎn
bold; brave; daring
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 攴
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): a hand (又) using a capturing tool (𰅱) to hunt a wild boar (豕). Later, 𰅱 was omitted and a redundant component 口 or 甘 was added (Chen Jian, 2020; Xie Mingwen, 2020).

The components eventually corrupted into the modern form.

Compare Burmese ဝံ့ (wam., “to dare”) (Schuessler, 2007; STEDT), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kV-wam (“to dare”), which Schuessler reconstructs as *k-wam to account for the initial velar in the Chinese form.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese丅
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*kV-wam “to dare”
  • partChinese耳 “ear”
  • partChinese攵

Related: Burmese ဝံ့

Words built on it: 勇敢, 嚴

Meanings

character
  1. bold; brave; daring
  2. to dare (to); to venture (to)
  3. to be sure; to be certain; to bet; to presume
  4. may I venture
  5. can it be possible that; how
  6. perhaps

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 有膽量、不畏懼。 例：勇敢、果敢、敢作敢當
  2. 自言冒昧。 例：敢請、敢問

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

How 敢 was written 字形演變

  1. 敢 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 敢 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 敢 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 敢 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 敢 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 敢