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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

敵

/ti³⁵/
enemy; foe; rival
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • radical 攴
  • 15 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *deːɡ): phonetic 啻 (OC *hljeɡs) + semantic 攴 (“to tap; to hit”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-taːj (“to retaliate; to grudge”). Cognate with Jingpho tai (tai³¹, “to avenge; to retaliate”) and Mizo tǎi (“to be at enmity with one another (intense); to have a grudge against”), and Burmese တေး (te:, “to grudge, to chalk up a grievance”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*m-taːj “to retaliate; to grudge”
  • soundChinese啻 “only; just”
  • meaningChinese攴 “to hit lightly; to tap”

Related: Jingpho tai, Mizo tǎi, Burmese တေး

Meanings

character
  1. enemy; foe; rival
  2. hostile; antagonistic
  3. to resist; to oppose
  4. to match; to rival

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

敵：仇也。从攴啻聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 與己方相對，有利害衝突而互不相容的一方。 例：仇敵、大敵當前、敵我不分
  2. 抵擋、抵抗。 例：寡不敵眾
  3. 相等、相當。 例：匹敵、勢均力敵

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

How 敵 was written 字形演變

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