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

盤

pán

tray; plate; dish

Phono-semantic compound 形聲
HSK 4
TOCFL 3
radical 皿
15 strokes
蹣
蹒

Etymology graph

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *baːn): phonetic 般 (OC *praːn, *paːn, *baːn) + semantic 皿.

凡 originally referred to this word, 殳 and 皿 were added later. The 凡 has also corrupted into 舟.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

soundChinese般 “sort; kind; class”
meaningChinese皿 “dish; vessel”

Meanings

character

tray; plate; dish
any object shaped like a tray or plate
washbasin (broad and shallow water-vessel for ablution)
to check; to examine
to check the number or amount of; to calculate
to twist; to coil up

國語辭典 definitions

一種盛放物品的淺底器皿。例：瓷盤、餐盤、托盤　◎
形狀像盤而作為承托或旋轉等用的東西。例：棋盤、羅盤、方向盤
屈曲相交。例：盤腿、盤膝
纏繞。例：她把頭髮盤起來。
詳加探查或清點。例：盤貨、盤點、盤問
買賣行情的價格。例：開盤、收盤、崩盤

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

How 盤 was written 字形演變

Bronze
金文
Shang–Zhou
Chu slips & silk
楚系簡帛
Warring States
Small seal
說文小篆
Shuowen, c. 100 CE
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
Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiktionary: 盤