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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

穿

chuān
to penetrate; to pierce
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 穴
  • 9 strokes
  • 頌
  • 撐
  • 颂
  • 撑

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Origin

Etymology 1

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 穴 (“cave”) + 牙 (“tooth”) – to penetrate through, to pass through.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan [Term?]; cognate with Tibetan རྟོལ (rtol, “to bore; to pierce; to perforate”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 2

From 上 (OC *djaŋʔ, *djaŋs) (Yang, 2016).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese穴 “hole”
  • ideaChinese牙 “tooth (Classifier: 顆／颗 m; 隻／只 m c; 棚 c)”

Related: Tibetan རྟོལ

Meanings

character
  1. to penetrate; to pierce
  2. to pass through; to cross
  3. to string; to chain
  4. to wear; to put on (clothing); to have (clothing) on
  5. placed after verbs to indicate “thoroughly; completely”

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

穿：通也。从牙在穴中。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 挖通、鑿通。 例：穿壁、穿鑿
  2. 通過孔、洞、空地等。 例：穿山洞、穿針孔、穿過森林
  3. 副詞。前接動詞，表透澈、明白、顯明。 例：看穿、說穿、拆穿
  4. 將衣、襪等套在身體上。 例：穿衣服、穿襪子　◎

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

How 穿 was written 字形演變

  1. 穿 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 穿 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 穿 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 穿