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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

祝

/ʈ͡ʂu⁵¹/
to offer good wishes
  • Ideogram
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 示
  • 10 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Ideogram (指事) – a man kneeling with open mouth (兄) next to an altar (示).

Perhaps related to 觸 (OC *tʰjoɡ, “to butt, knock against”); see there for more (STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese礻 “Left radical form of 示 (示字旁, shìzìpáng)”
  • partChinese兄 “elder brother”
    • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
    • ideaChinese儿 “standing person”

Words built on it: 祝福

Meanings

character
  1. to offer good wishes
  2. to pray; to say prayers
  3. words said in a prayer in a religious ceremony
  4. wizard; warlock; sorcerer
  5. temple attendant who burns joss sticks and candles
  6. to break off; to cut off; to sever

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

祝：祭主贊詞者。从示，从人口，一曰从兌省。《易》曰：「兌，爲口爲巫。」

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 祭祀時的主持人。 例：廟祝
  2. 禱告、祈求。 例：祝禱、祝福
  3. 慶賀、頌賀。 例：祝壽、祝嘏
  4. 姓。

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

How 祝 was written 字形演變

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