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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

數

shǔ
to count; to enumerate
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 攴
  • 15 strokes
  • 賬
  • 账

Etymology graph

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

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sroʔ, *sros, *sroːɡ): phonetic 婁 (OC *ɡ·roː, *ɡ·ro) + semantic 攴.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *r-tsjəj (“to count”); cognate to Tibetan རྩི (rtsi, “to count; to calculate”), Burmese ရေ (re, “to count”), Jingpho hti, Ersu htɛ⁵⁵ (STEDT).

Schuessler (2007) connects this word with Austroasiatic; compare Mon ရိုဟ် (rɜ̀h), from Middle Mon ruih (“to count”), from Proto-Mon-Khmer *rʔis (“to count”).

Etymology 2

Exopassive derivation of Etymology 1 with suffix *-s, meaning "what is counted" (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 3

Derivation of Etymology 1, perhaps with distributive suffix *-k (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*r-tsjəj “to count”
  • soundChinese婁 “the constellation Lóu, one of the twenty-eight lunar mansions”
    • meaningChinese爪 “claw (of animal, bird); talon; paw; nail”
    • ideaChinese母 “mother”
    • soundChinese角 “horn; antler”
    • ideaChinese中 “middle; center”
    • meaningChinese女 “woman; (only of humans in Standard Chinese) female”
  • meaningChinese攴 “to hit lightly; to tap”

Related: Tibetan རྩི, Burmese ရေ, Jingpho hti, Ersu htɛ⁵⁵, Mon ရိုဟ်, Middle Mon ruih, Proto-Mon-Khmer *rʔis

Meanings

character
  1. to count; to enumerate
  2. to be reckoned as
  3. to criticize; to find fault; to blame

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

數：計也。从攴婁聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 細密。 例：數罟

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

How 數 was written 字形演變

  1. 數 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 數 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 數 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: 數