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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

欠

qiàn
to lack; to be deficient
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 欠
  • 4 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Pictogram (象形) – a kneeling person with mouth open for various reasons (e.g., begging 欠, speaking and/or spitting while speaking 次, blowing 吹, singing 歌, desiring 欲, being tired 軟, vomiting 歐...).

The reversed version of this character is 㒫 > 旡 (e.g. 既), which must not be confused with 无.

Similar but unrelated to 卩, in which the person kneeling has the mouth shut.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese刀 “knife; blade (Classifier: 把 m c g h j mb md w x; 張／张 c h; 叢／丛 mn; 支 mn mn-t)”
  • partChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”

Words built on it: 歌, 吹, 款, 歡, 飲

Meanings

character
  1. to lack; to be deficient
  2. to owe
  3. to ask for; to beg for
  4. to yawn
  5. to raise slightly (a part of the body)
  6. to be fidgety and bungling

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

欠：張口气悟也。象气从人上出之形。凡欠之屬皆从欠。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 累的時候張嘴舒氣。 例：呵欠
  2. 向別人借貸未還或該給而未給。 例：欠帳、欠債、欠薪
  3. 不夠、缺乏。 例：欠安、欠妥、欠缺
  4. 肢體稍微向前彎曲。 例：欠身

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

How 欠 was written 字形演變

  1. 欠 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 欠 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 欠 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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 欠