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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

破

pò
to break; to tear
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 石
  • 10 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *pʰaːls): semantic 石 + phonetic 皮 (OC *bral).

According to Schuessler (2007), cognate with Burmese ဖဲ့ (hpai., “to break off a small piece”), Dimasa bai (“break”), Mizo peh (peʔ, “to break; be broken”); the connection to the Burmese is supported by Hill (2019). However, STEDT derives the above three terms from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *(p/b)aj (“to break out; to break off; to hatch”) and does not compare 破 (OC *pʰaːls) to it.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese石 “stone; rock (Classifier: 嚿 c; 塊／块 c)”
  • soundChinese皮 “skin; peel; shell; rind (Classifier: 塊／块 m c; 層／层 m c)”

Related: Burmese ဖဲ့, Dimasa bai, Mizo peh, Proto-Tibeto-Burman *paj

Words built on it: 突破, 打破

Meanings

character
  1. to break; to tear
  2. to break; to break with; to smash
  3. to ruin; to destroy
  4. to rout; to drive out; to drive away; to banish
  5. to remove; to clear; to eliminate; to dispel
  6. to spend; to expend

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

破：石碎也。从石皮聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 殘破不全的。 例：破船、破鞋、破洞　◎
  2. 毀壞、使碎裂。 例：破壞、破釜沉舟
  3. 擊敗、攻下。 例：破城、大破敵軍
  4. 剖開、劈開。 例：勢如破竹、乘風破浪
  5. 超越。 例：破戒、破例、破紀錄
  6. 花費、消耗。 例：破財、破費

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

How 破 was written 字形演變

  1. 破 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 破 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: 破