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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

條

tiáo
strip; slip
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 木
  • 11 strokes
  • 樤
  • 𣔌

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *l'ɯːw): phonetic 攸 (OC *lɯw) + semantic 木. Originally it indicates a small branch, perhaps with some reference to a wooden stick (in the top component, there is a man warned by a hand holding a vertical stick). The bottom part of the character is unrelated to 茶.

Related to 悠 (OC *lɯw, “remote; distant”), 修 (OC *slɯw, “long and thin”) (Schuessler, 2007). Note similarities to Thai ทิว (tiu, “row, line”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese攸 “place; place where”
    • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
    • ideaChinese攴 “to hit lightly; to tap”
  • meaningChinese木 “tree; woody plant”

Meanings

character
  1. strip; slip
  2. twig; branch
  3. long and thin objects
  4. item; article; section; clause; condition
  5. informal note
  6. order

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

條：小枝也。从木攸聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 細長形的物體。 例：線條、麵條、枝條
  2. 呈細長形狀的。 例：條紋、條膏
  3. 次序、系統。 例：有條不紊、井井有條
  4. 分項舉出的。 例：條款、條文、條例
  5. 量詞

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

How 條 was written 字形演變

  1. 條 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 條 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 條 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: 條