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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

燒

shāo
to burn
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 火
  • 16 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *hŋjew, *hŋjaws): semantic 火 (“fire”) + phonetic 堯 (OC *ŋeːw).

From 蕘 (OC *ŋjew, “firewood; fuel”) with causative devoicing (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese火 “fire; flame (Classifier: 把 m; 團／团 m)”
  • soundChinese堯 “lofty; high”
    • soundChinese垚 “tall”
    • meaningChinese兀 “towering”

Meanings

character
  1. to burn
  2. to heat up; to make warm
  3. to burn; to corrode
  4. to roast; to grill; to braise
  5. to stew after frying, or to fry after stewing
  6. to cook (food)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

燒：爇也。从火堯聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 使東西著火。 例：燃燒、焚燒、燒香拜佛　◎
  2. 加熱使物體發生變化。 例：燒飯、燒水、燒磚
  3. 人因病而體溫升高。 例：發燒
  4. 一種烹調方法
  5. 熱烤的。 例：燒餅、燒雞、燒鴨

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

How 燒 was written 字形演變

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