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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

生

shēng
to live; to subsist; to exist
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 生
  • 5 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Etymology 1

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 屮 (“bud”) + 一 (“ground”) – sprouting from the ground. A conservative version is 𤯓, which is unrelated to 㞷 (匩 > 匡) and 𡴀 > 丰.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sreŋ (“to live; to be alive; to give birth; raw; green”). Cognate with Burmese ရှင် (hrang, “to live; alive”), Mizo hring (“to bear; to bring forth; to give birth to; green”).

Schuessler (2007) proposes that Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sriŋ is derived from the root *sri (“to exist”) (whence possibly Chinese 體 (OC *r̥ʰiːʔ, “body; shape; form”)) + *-ŋ (terminative suffix).

Both level tone and falling tone readings are found in Middle Chinese, but the latter has since been lost and is merged into the level-tone reading in modern dialects.

Related to 青 (OC *sʰleːŋ, “blue-green”), 蒼 (OC *sʰaːŋ, *sʰaːŋʔ, “dark blue; deep green”).

Derivatives: 性 (OC *sleŋs, “nature; character; personality; quality”), 姓 (OC *sleŋs, “family name”).

Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese is *sraeng, but it comes from an earlier *srjaeng, as seen in Wang Renxu's edition of the Qieyun.

Etymology 2

From Mandarin 上.

Etymology 3

Phono-semantic matching of Japanese さん (-san).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese屮 “new birth of plant”
  • ideaChinese一 “one”
  • borrowedMandarin上
  • borrowedJapaneseさん

Related: Burmese ရှင်, Mizo hring

Words built on it: 先生, 生活, 生日, 女生, 省, 姓, 男生, 生病, 出生, 生命, 一生, 性

Meanings

character
  1. to live; to subsist; to exist
  2. to grow; to develop; to bud
  3. to bear; to give birth; to bring up; to rear
  4. to be born; to come into existence
  5. to lay (an egg)
  6. pupil; disciple; student

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

生：進也。象艸木生出土上。凡生之屬皆从生。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 與「死」相對
  2. 發育、長出。 例：生根、生髮、旁生枝節
  3. 發生、弄出。 例：生病、生事、生氣
  4. 生命、性命。 例：求生、輕生、放生
  5. 活著的期間。 例：今生、此生、餘生
  6. 點燃。 例：生火、生爐子

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

How 生 was written 字形演變

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