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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

相

xiāng
to see for oneself; to evaluate by seeing for oneself
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 目
  • 9 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 木 (“tree”) + 目 (“eye”) – an eye looking at a tree — original character for 相 (OC *slaŋs, “to observe”). Later phonetically borrowed to represent 相 (OC *slaŋ, “mutually”).

An allofam is 胥 (OC *sŋa, *sŋaʔ, “each other; mutually; all; to observe; to assist”) (Gong, 1995; Schuessler, 2007). Note also similarities to Burmese သင့် (sang., “to befall, be suitable”).

Derivative: 想 (OC *slaŋʔ, “to think”) (“appearance > to visualise > to think”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese木 “tree; woody plant”
  • ideaChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”

Related: Burmese သင့်

Words built on it: 想, 相信, 相同, 互相, 照相, 相互, 相似, 相反, 相片, 箱, 相比, 相關

Meanings

character
  1. to see for oneself; to evaluate by seeing for oneself
  2. mutually; reciprocally; towards each other; one another
  3. together; jointly
  4. successively; one after another
  5. used before a verb to indicate the action is performed by one person towards another
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

相：省視也。从目从木。《易》曰：“地可觀者，莫可觀於木。”《詩》曰：“相鼠有皮。”

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 容貌、外形。 例：長相、福相、吃相
  2. 輔佐國君綜治國政的主要官員。 例：宰相、丞相、首相
  3. 審視、察看。 例：相時而動、相機行事
  4. 觀察容貌等以斷吉凶。 例：相命
  5. 輔導行禮的人。 例：儐相
  6. 輔佐、幫助。 例：吉人天相

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

How 相 was written 字形演變

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