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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

樹

shù
to plant; to place upright; to cultivate
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 木
  • 16 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *djoʔ, *djos): semantic 木 (“tree”) + phonetic 尌 (OC *djos, “to plant a tree”). Originally written as 尌; an extra 木 was added to differentiate.

Area word (Schuessler, 2007): Mizo tuh (“to plant, to sow”), Khmer ដុះ (doh, “to grow, to bud”). Starostin compares it with Tibetan གདོས (gdos), གདོས་པ (gdos pa, “mast”) and Burmese ထူ (htu, “to erect (a post), to raise (a flag)”).

Related to 豎 (OC *djoʔ, “to erect; to make vertical”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese木 “tree; woody plant”
  • soundChinese尌 “original form of 樹／树 (shù)”
    • ideaChinese寸 “Legally defined as the tsun of 3.71475 cm.”

Related: Mizo tuh, Khmer ដុះ, Tibetan གདོས, Burmese ထူ

Meanings

character
  1. to plant; to place upright; to cultivate
  2. to set up; to establish
  3. tree (Classifier: 棵 m w; 株 m; 樖 c; 叢／丛 mn; 頭／头 h; 蔸 md)
  4. Classifier for trees.
  5. tree
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

樹：生植之緫名。从木尌聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 木本植物的總稱。 例：樹木、樹林
  2. 種植、栽培。 例：樹桑、百年樹人
  3. 建立。 例：樹碑、樹德

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

How 樹 was written 字形演變

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