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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

林

lín
forest; grove; woods
  • HSK 4
  • radical 木
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Duplication of 木 (“tree”) to give the idea of multiple trees (compare 森), thus a forest. See also the top component of 散 in its original version.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rəm (“jungle; forest; country; field”) (STEDT under PTB *ram). Cognate with 森 (OC *srɯm, “forest”), Mizo ram (“forest; country”), Karbi ram (“jungle”).

Or perhaps an area word (Schuessler, 2007), shared with Khmer រាម (riəm, “thick bushy jungle that grows along a stream”), Old Khmer *rām (“inundated forest along a watercourse”), Old Khmer sarāma ~ sarāṃ (“a tract of stunted vegetation”), Mon ရာံ (rèm, “copse; patch of woodland”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

Related: Mizo ram, Karbi ram, Khmer រាម, Old Khmer *rām, Old Khmer sarāma ~ sarāṃ, Mon ရာံ

Words built on it: 森林, 散, 楚, 農

Meanings

character
  1. forest; grove; woods
  2. circle; community; group of similar people or things
  3. forestry
  4. a surname, commonly romanized as Lin, Lim, and Lam

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

林：平土有叢木曰林。从二木。凡林之屬皆从林。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 樹木或竹子叢生的地方。 例：竹林、松林、防風林
  2. 泛指同類的人或事物薈聚之所。 例：碑林、儒林、藝林
  3. 形容眾多。 例：工廠林立
  4. 姓。

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

How 林 was written 字形演變

  1. 林 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 林 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 林 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 林 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 林 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 林 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: 林