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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

當

dāng
to face; to turn towards
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 田
  • 13 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *taːŋ, *taːŋs): phonetic 尚 (OC *djaŋ, *djaŋs) + semantic 田 (“field”) – fields facing each other.

當 (OC *taːŋs, “right; suitable; ought to”) (pronunciation 2) is the exopassive derivation of 當 (OC *taːŋ, “to have the value of; to be equal of; to face; vis-à-vis”) (pronunciation 1), literally "what is being matched".

黨 (OC *taːŋʔ, “class; party”) is the endoactive derivation of 當 (OC *taːŋ, “to be equal of”), literally "that which is equal in rank" (Schuessler, 2007).

Perhaps cognate with Tibetan དང (dang, “(together) with; and”) (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese尚 “still; yet”
    • meaningChinese八 “eight”
    • soundChinese向 “to face”
      • ideaChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
      • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • meaningChinese田 “farmland (Classifier: 塊／块 m c)”

Related: Tibetan དང

Words built on it: 當然, 當時, 擋

Meanings

character
  1. to face; to turn towards
  2. to bear; to withstand; to resist
  3. to undertake; to manage; to take charge of
  4. to work as; to serve as
  5. to match equally; to equal; to be equal to
  6. just at the time of; just happen (to be at a certain moment)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

當：田相值也。从田尚聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 匹敵、抵抗。通「擋」。 例：銳不可當、螳臂當車

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

How 當 was written 字形演變

  1. 當 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 當 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 當 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 當 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: 當