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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

肥

féi
fat; plump; obese (adjective)
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 肉
  • 8 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
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Origin

Etymology 1

Shuowen Jiezi: Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 肉 (“meat”) + 卪 (“person kneeling”).

Ji Xusheng (2004) posits that its actually a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *bɯl): semantic 肉 + abbreviated phonetic 妃 (OC *pʰɯːls, *pʰɯl).

STEDT provisionally assigns this to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bu ~ bur.

Etymology 2

Shortened from 肥佬 (fei4 lou2), from English fail.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • derivedProto-Sino-Tibetan*bu ~ bur
  • ideaChinese肉 “meat; flesh”
  • ideaChinese卪 “joint; node”
  • soundChinese妃 “spouse; couple”
    • ideaChinese女 “woman; (only of humans in Standard Chinese) female”
    • ideaChinese卩 “kneeling person”
  • derivedEnglishfail “To be unsuccessful.”
    • inheritedMiddle Englishfailen
      • borrowedOld Frenchfalir

Meanings

character
  1. fat; plump; obese (adjective)
  2. fat; fatness (noun)
  3. fat; oily
  4. lard
  5. fertile
  6. fertiliser

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

肥：多肉也。从肉从卪。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 脂肪較多，體態豐滿。與「瘦」相對。一般用來形容動物。 例：肥胖、肥豬、肥肉
  2. 土地腴美的。 例：肥沃、肥田
  3. 利益豐厚的。 例：肥缺
  4. 農地的營養劑。 例：施肥、水肥、有機肥
  5. 書法筆畫粗。 例：顏真卿的字肥而不拙。

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

How 肥 was written 字形演變

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