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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

毛

máo
hair (of humans or animals); fur; feather (Classifier: 根 m; 條／条 c; 支 mn)
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 毛
  • 4 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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Origin

Pictogram (象形) – feather or hair.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s/r-m(u/i/ja)l (“hair; fur; feather”); related to 眉 (OC *mril, “eyebrow”) and cognate with Manipuri ꯃꯨꯅ (mun, “pubic hair”), Garo খিমিল (khimil, “hair; fur”), Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔ-məw¹ (“body hair”) (STEDT; Schuessler, 2007).

(Cantonese) (mold): folk etymology suggests from English mold.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese丿 “left-falling stroke, usually read as 撇”
  • partChinese一 “one”
  • partChinese匕 “a kind of spoon in ancient China”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*s/r-m(u/i/ja)l “hair; fur; feather”

Related: Manipuri ꯃꯨꯅ, Garo খিমিল, Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔ-məw¹

Words built on it: 老, 表, 毛病, 尾, 毛巾

Meanings

character
  1. hair (of humans or animals); fur; feather (Classifier: 根 m; 條／条 c; 支 mn)
  2. hair on the head
  3. mildew; mold
  4. jiao; one tenth of a yuan or dollar; ten cents; dime
  5. coarse; raw; semifinished
  6. gross

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

毛：眉髮之屬及獸毛也。象形。凡毛之屬皆从毛。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 動植物表皮或果實表皮所生的絲狀物。 例：羊毛、羽毛、眉毛
  2. 植物的泛稱。多指五穀、蔬菜。 例：不毛之地
  3. 驚恐、害怕的樣子。 例：他聽爺爺講鬼故事，聽得心裡直發毛。
  4. 生氣、發怒的樣子。 例：別把我惹毛了！
  5. 粗糙、未經加工的。 例：毛片、毛玻璃
  6. 約略、不純的。 例：毛利、毛重

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

How 毛 was written 字形演變

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