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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

目

mù
eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 2
  • radical 目
  • 5 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Pictogram (象形) – human eye, now rotated 90 degrees. Compare the Egyptian hieroglyph 𓁹.

See also 直, 見, 頁, 夏, 面, 臣 and the earlier versions of 要. The eye is not rotated in the character 𢛳, 曼, 睪, and 眔 (used in 褱).

Sometimes it depicts a web (网) through its variant 罒, e.g., 買, 罵, 罪, 詈 (used in 罰) and 羅 (> 罗). Unrelated to 鼎, 貝, and 真.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *mjək. Cognate with Tibetan མིག (mig, “eye”), Burmese မျက် (myak, “eye, face”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese囗 “box, enclosure”
  • partChinese二 “two”

Related: Tibetan མིག, Burmese မျက်

Words built on it: 看, 見, 算, 省, 目的, 目前, 明, 相, 睡, 自, 直, 縣

Meanings

character
  1. eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)
  2. eyesight
  3. to look; to view; to see
  4. to wink at
  5. to judge; to comment on
  6. opinion; viewpoint

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

目：人眼。象形。重童子也。凡目之屬皆从目。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 眼睛。 例：耳聰目明、賞心悅目、眉清目秀
  2. 條款、細則。 例：項目、條目、細目
  3. 列在書本或正文前以供檢索內容的簡便條文。 例：書目、篇目、目錄
  4. 名稱、標題。 例：品目、名目、題目
  5. 首領。 例：頭目
  6. 生物學中分類的階層名稱。 例：界、門、綱、目、科、屬、種

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

How 目 was written 字形演變

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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 目