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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

盡

jìn
to end; to finish; to be exhausted
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 皿
  • 14 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 聿 (“hand holding a brush”) + 灬 (“bristles”) + 皿 (“dish”) – cleaning a dish with a brush – empty.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *dzin (“to exhaust; to come to an end”). Cognate with Tibetan ཟིན (zin, “to be finished; to draw near an end”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*dzin “to exhaust; to come to an end”
  • ideaChinese聿 “original form of 筆／笔 (bǐ, “writing brush; pencil”)”
  • ideaChinese灬 “bristles”
  • ideaChinese皿 “dish; vessel”

Related: Tibetan ཟིན

Words built on it: 儘

Meanings

character
  1. to end; to finish; to be exhausted
  2. to reach the end
  3. to exhaust; to use to the fullest extent
  4. to die
  5. all; completely; entirely
  6. only; alone

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

盡：器中空也。从皿㶳聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 完結、終止。 例：冬盡春來、取之不盡、無窮無盡
  2. 全部用出，竭力。 例：竭盡所能、盡其所能、盡心盡力
  3. 全部、都。 例：應有盡有、盡在不言中
  4. 達到極限、極致。 例：詳盡、盡善盡美
  5. 死亡。 例：自盡

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

How 盡 was written 字形演變

  1. 盡 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 盡 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 盡 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 盡 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 盡 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 盡