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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

結

jié
to tie; to bind; to join; to connect
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 糸
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kiːd): semantic 糸 + phonetic 吉 (OC *klid).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kjit (“to tie; to bind”); cognate with Tibetan ཁྱིག (khyig, “to bind”), Burmese ကျစ် (kyac, “to twist”) (Schuessler, 2007; STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*kjit “to tie; to bind”
  • meaningChinese糸 “thin silk”
  • soundChinese吉 “auspicious; lucky”

Related: Tibetan ཁྱིག, Burmese ကျစ်

Words built on it: 結束, 結婚

Meanings

character
  1. to tie; to bind; to join; to connect
  2. to solidify; to form; to combine; to fuse
  3. to form; to forge (a relationship)
  4. to sum up; to end; to finish; to settle
  5. knot; tie (Classifier: 個／个 m c)
  6. junction

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

結：締也。从糸吉聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 用繩或線相鉤連。 例：結網、結繩、張燈結彩
  2. 聯合構成某種關係。 例：結婚、結仇、義結金蘭
  3. 繩、線或帶子所繫成的紐。 例：領結、死結、蝴蝶結
  4. 凝聚。 例：結冰、凝結、凍結
  5. 終了、收束。 例：結案、結帳、了結
  6. 植物長出果實。 例：結實纍纍

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

How 結 was written 字形演變

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