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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

管

guǎn
a cylindrical double-reed woodwind instrument made of bamboo or wood
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 竹
  • 14 strokes
  • 廣
  • 广

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *koːnʔ): semantic 竹 (“bamboo”) + phonetic 官 (OC *koːn).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese竹 “bamboo (Classifier: 枝; 棵 m; 根 m; 轆／辘 c)”
  • soundChinese官 “government official, public servant”
    • ideaChinese宀 “a type of deep house with walls on all four sides, a roof, a main hall, and back rooms”
    • ideaChinese𠂤 “ancient form of 師 (“troops”)”

Words built on it: 管理, 不管, 主管

Meanings

character
  1. a cylindrical double-reed woodwind instrument made of bamboo or wood
  2. any wind instrument
  3. slender tubular hollow object; pipe; tube; duct; canal; valve; fistula
  4. calligraphy brush; inkbrush
  5. Classifier for tube-shaped objects.
  6. to administer; to manage; to control; to be in charge

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

管：如篪，六孔。十二月之音。物開地牙，故謂之管。从竹官聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 中空的圓柱形物體。 例：水管、燈管、橡皮管
  2. 主持、掌理。 例：管帳、管生意
  3. 擔任、負責。 例：我管下麵，你管招呼客人。
  4. 負責供給。 例：管吃管住
  5. 約束、教導。 例：管學生、管孩子
  6. 理會、顧慮。 例：別管他，我們先走！

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

How 管 was written 字形演變

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