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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

紙

zhǐ
paper (Classifier: 張／张; 頁／页)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 糸
  • 10 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kjeʔ): semantic 糸 (“silk”) + phonetic 氏 (OC *skeŋ, *kje, *ɡjeʔ).

Unknown. It has been connected to Vietnamese giấy (< Proto-Vietic *k-cajʔ).

Shiming (釋名) connects it to 砥 (OC *tijʔ, “flat and smooth; fine-grained whetstone”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese糸 “thin silk”
  • soundChinese氏 “clan; family; lineage; hereditary house”

Related: Vietnamese giấy, Proto-Vietic *k-cajʔ

Meanings

character
  1. paper (Classifier: 張／张; 頁／页)
  2. currency
  3. banknote; bill (Classifier: 張／张 c)
  4. document; certificate
  5. Classifier for document and letters.
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

紙：絮一苫也。从糸氏聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 主要以植物纖維為原料製成，可供於書畫、印刷、包裝等用途的片狀物。 例：報紙、面紙、色紙
  2. 量詞。計算文件書信張數的單位。 例：一紙公文

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

How 紙 was written 字形演變

  1. 紙 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 紙 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 紙 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 紙 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: 紙