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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

牛

niú
bovine, e.g. cow, bull, ox, buffalo, bison, yak (Classifier: 頭／头 m c mb md; 條／条 m g h x; 隻／只 m c g mn w x)
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 牛
  • 4 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Pictogram (象形) of a bull's head, with two horns and two ears. Perhaps unrelated to 告; unrelated to 先.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ŋwə.

;"awesome"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese丿 “left-falling stroke, usually read as 撇”
  • partChinese一 “one”
  • partChinese十 “ten”

Words built on it: 半, 件, 牛奶, 物, 解

Meanings

character
  1. bovine, e.g. cow, bull, ox, buffalo, bison, yak (Classifier: 頭／头 m c mb md; 條／条 m g h x; 隻／只 m c g mn w x)
  2. beef
  3. Ox (Chinese zodiac sign)
  4. stubborn; pigheaded
  5. arrogant
  6. awesome; powerful

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

牛：大牲也。牛，件也；件，事理也。象角頭三、封㞑之形。凡牛之屬皆从牛。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 動物名。脊椎動物哺乳綱偶蹄目。體形碩壯，尾巴尖端有長毛，性情多溫馴而力氣大，為草食性反芻類動物。依體型不同而有不同的用途。肉與乳皆可食用，而骨、皮、角等可做器具使用。
  2. 固執、倔強。 例：牛脾氣、牛性子
  3. 姓。

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

How 牛 was written 字形演變

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