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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

產

chǎn
to give birth; to bring forth
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 生
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sŋreːnʔ): abbreviated phonetic 彥 (OC *ŋrans) + semantic 生 (“to be born”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *srjal (“to breed; to bring up”), whence Tibetan སྲེལ (srel, “to bring up; to rear”).

Schuessler (2007) notes that this word is equally likely to have been Austroasiatic in origin. Compare Khmer សំរាល (sɑmraal, “to give birth”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*srjal “to breed; to bring up”
  • soundChinese彥 “person of virtue and ability”
    • soundChinese厂 “cliff; habitable cave on a cliff”
    • meaningChinese彣 “variegated; literary talent”
      • soundChinese文 “original form of 紋／纹 (wén, “mark, pattern, design, tattoo, decoration”)”
      • meaningChinese彡 “hair”
  • meaningChinese生 “to live; to subsist; to exist”
    • ideaChinese屮 “new birth of plant”
    • ideaChinese一 “one”

Related: Tibetan སྲེལ, Khmer សំរាល

Words built on it: 生產, 產品

Meanings

character
  1. to give birth; to bring forth
  2. to produce (naturally)
  3. to make; to manufacture
  4. produced or manufactured item; product; produce
  5. property; wealth; premises
  6. a surname, Chan

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

產：生也。从生，彥省聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 出自人工或天然的物品。 例：礦產、土產、特產
  2. 房地財物。 例：財產、不動產
  3. 生。 例：生產、產卵
  4. 自然生長或人工種植、製造。 例：盛產、出產

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

How 產 was written 字形演變

  1. 產 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 產 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 產 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 產 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 產 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: 產