Chinese

晴

qíng
clear; fine; cloudless
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 日
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Written as 夝 in Shuowen and as 星 in the Classic of Poetry.

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *zleŋ): semantic 日 (“sun”) + phonetic 青 (OC *sʰleːŋ).

Baxter and Sagart (2014) propose that it is from 清 (OC *tsʰeŋ, “clear”) with the intransitivizing/stativizing prefix *N-. Compare Proto-Hmong-Mien *ntshji̯əŋ (“clear”), whence White Hmong ntshiab.

Alternatively, it is perhaps derived from 星 (OC *sleːŋ, “star”): "become starry" > "weather clearing during the night" > "clearing when the sun is coming out" (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese日 “Sun”
  • soundChinese青 “blue-green ("grue"); blue (of sky, stone etc.); green (of grass, plants, mountains etc.)”
    • soundChinese生 “to live; to subsist; to exist”
      • ideaChinese屮 “new birth of plant”
      • ideaChinese一 “one”
    • soundChinese井 “well (a hole sunk into the ground) (Classifier: 口; 眼)”

Related: Proto-Hmong-Mien *ntshji̯əŋ, White Hmong ntshiab

Words built on it: 晴天

Sources