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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

球

qiú
fine jade
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 玉
  • 11 strokes
  • 毬

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɡu): semantic 玉 (“jade”) + phonetic 求 (OC *ɡu).

"Ball", earlier some "kind of jade". Bodman (1980) relates this to Wuming Zhuang klauᴬ² (“ball”), and relates 俅 (qiú, “gem-adorned”) to Tibetan གྲུ (gru, “lustre of gems”). This character had a softened initial in Proto-Min.

Originally written as 毬 (since Tang dynasty) when referring to a ball. The form 球 (since Qing dynasty) is now more common.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese玉 “jade (originally nephrite, now also including jadeite)”
  • soundChinese求 “to seek; to look for”

Related: Tibetan གྲུ

Words built on it: 足球, 全球, 地球, 打球, 排球, 球迷

Meanings

character
  1. fine jade
  2. percussion instrument made of jade
  3. ball; globe; orb
  4. ball; solid sphere
  5. earth; globe
  6. ball (in sports) (Classifier: 個／个 m)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

球:玉聲也。从玉，求聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 數學上指以半圓的直徑為軸，使半圓旋轉一周而成的立體。由球心至表面各點距離皆相等。 例：球體
  2. 圓形或球形物的通稱。 例：棉球、籃球、紅血球
  3. 專指地球。 例：全球、環球、北半球
  4. 量詞。計算球狀物的單位。 例：兩球毛線、兩球冰淇淋

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

How 球 was written 字形演變

  1. 球 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 球 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 球