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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

桌

zhuō
table; desk; stand
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 木
  • 10 strokes
  • 棹

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) and phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *rteːwɢ): phonetic 卓 (OC *rteːwɢ, “high”) + semantic 木 (“tree; wood”) – table. The bottom 十 of 卓 has merged with or been replaced by 木. An obsolete variant that distinguishes the two components is 棹.

From 卓 (OC *rteːwɢ, “high”), as tables are relatively tall (compared to other pieces of furniture like 几 (OC *krilʔ, “stool”)).

Similar descriptive derivations for pieces of furniture include:

* 登 (OC *tɯːŋ, “to climb”) > 凳 (OC *tɯːŋs, “stool”)

* 倚 (OC *qralʔ, *qrals, “to lean”) > 椅 (OC *qral, *qralʔ, “chair”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese卓 “tall and erect”
  • meaningChinese木 “tree; woody plant”

Words built on it: 桌子

Meanings

character
  1. table; desk; stand
  2. Classifier for tablefuls of dishes or people: table
  3. feast; banquet

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 上有一板面，下有柱子支撐，可放東西或用來讀書、吃飯的家具。 例：飯桌、書桌、餐桌
  2. 量詞。計算菜餚、酒席、賓客等的單位。 例：五桌菜、三桌客人、十桌酒席

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

How 桌 was written 字形演變

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