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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

職

zhí
duty; profession
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 耳
  • 18 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *tjɯɡ): semantic 耳 (“ear”) + phonetic 戠 (OC *tjɯɡ).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese耳 “ear”
  • soundChinese戠 “sword”
    • ideaChinese音 “sound; voice; tone”
    • ideaChinese戈 “dagger-axe (an ancient Chinese weapon similar to a halberd)”

Meanings

character
  1. duty; profession
  2. office; post

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

職：記微也。从耳戠聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 工作事務。 例：盡職、辭職、身居要職
  2. 掌管、管理。 例：職掌、職司
  3. 基於、因為。 例：職是之故

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

How 職 was written 字形演變

  1. 職 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 職 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 職 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 職 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 職 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: 職