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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

缺

quē
incomplete; uncompleted; deficient
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 缶
  • 10 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kʰʷed, *kʰʷeːd): semantic 缶 (“earthen pot”) + phonetic 夬 (OC *kʷraːds).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese缶 “earthen pot or jar for storing an alcoholic drink”
  • soundChinese夬 “resolute”

Words built on it: 缺乏, 缺少

Meanings

character
  1. incomplete; uncompleted; deficient
  2. imperfect; flawed
  3. to lack; to be short of
  4. to be absent
  5. vacancy; gap; deficit
  6. to be mean; to be wicked

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

缺：器破也。从缶，決省聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 殘破，不完美。 例：缺陷、缺點、完美無缺
  2. 職位的空額。 例：懸缺、出缺、遺缺
  3. 短少、不足。 例：缺人、缺貨、缺少
  4. 應到而未到。 例：缺席、缺課
  5. 裂口、空隙。 例：駕長車踏破，賀蘭山缺。（宋．岳飛〈滿江紅．怒髮衝冠〉詞）

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

How 缺 was written 字形演變

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