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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

權

quán
power; authority
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • radical 木
  • 22 strokes

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɡron): semantic 木 (“tree”) + phonetic 雚 (OC *koːns) – a type of tree named 黃華 (Shuowen); phonetically borrowed for "standard weight".

; "power"

Possibly from 拳 (OC *ɡron, “fist”) (Schuessler, 2007).

; "steelyard counterweight"

Possibly from 懸 (OC *ɡʷeːn, “to hang”) according to Zhu Junsheng’s (朱駿聲) Shuowen Tongxun Dingsheng (說文通訓定聲).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese木 “tree; woody plant”
  • soundChinese雚 “original form of 鸛／鹳 (guàn, “stork; heron”)”

Meanings

character
  1. power; authority
  2. right; entitlement
  3. steelyard counterweight
  4. scales
  5. to weigh; to measure; to judge
  6. expediency; adaptability

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

權：黃華木。从木雚聲。一曰反常。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 勢力、威勢。 例：君權、權威、大權旁落
  2. 因人為因素所產生的力量與利益。 例：版權、投票權、所有權
  3. 衡量。 例：權衡、權度
  4. 暫且。 例：權充、權當
  5. 姓。

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

How 權 was written 字形演變

  1. 權 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 權 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 權 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: 權