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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

筆

bǐ
writing brush
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 竹
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *prud): semantic 竹 (“bamboo”) + phonetic 聿 (OC *b·lud, “writing brush”). 聿 originally referred to this word; 竹 was added later to differentiate.

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *b-ris (“to draw; picture”) or *rit (“to draw; boundary”) (STEDT). Related to 聿 (OC *b·lud); more distant cognates from the allofamic root *b-rəy (“to draw, mark; boundary”) include 理 (OC *rɯʔ, “to cut jade, put in order”), Tibetan འབྲི ('bri, “to write”), Burmese ရေး (re:, “to write”).

Benedict (1972) surmises that this might ultimately be a loan from Austro-Tai into Sino-Tibetan; compare Proto-Austronesian *bulut (“hairy filaments of certain plants, husk”) (> Cebuano bulut).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*b-ris “to draw; picture”
  • meaningChinese竹 “bamboo (Classifier: 枝; 棵 m; 根 m; 轆／辘 c)”
  • soundChinese聿 “original form of 筆／笔 (bǐ, “writing brush; pencil”)”

Related: Tibetan འབྲི, Burmese ရေး, Proto-Austronesian *bulut, Cebuano bulut

Meanings

character
  1. writing brush
  2. pen; pencil (Classifier: 枝／支 m c mn; 把 md)
  3. to write; to compose; to pen
  4. Classifier for writing or drawing: stroke (of Chinese characters, in a painting, etc.)
  5. Classifier for sums of money and deals. ⇒ all nouns using this classifier

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

筆：秦謂之筆。从聿从竹。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 寫字、畫圖的用具。 例：毛筆、鋼筆、水彩筆　◎
  2. 筆畫。 例：起筆、筆順
  3. 指文章的寫作技巧、描寫或議論。 例：伏筆、敗筆、驚人之筆
  4. 寫作、記述。 例：筆者、筆述、筆之於書
  5. 直的。 例：筆挺、筆直
  6. 量詞

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

How 筆 was written 字形演變

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