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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

腰

/jɑʊ̯⁵⁵/
waist; lower back; small of the back (Classifier: 條／条 c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 肉
  • 13 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *qew): semantic ⺼ (“flesh”) + phonetic 要 (OC *qew, *qews).

Perhaps an areal word; compare Thai เอว (eeo, “waist”) (Schuessler, 2007), if not borrowed from the Chinese. Schuessler's additional comparison of a Proto-Hmongic *qlauᴮ (“waist, lower back”) (whence White Hmong duav (“waist”)), appears phonetically suspect due to the proto-form being more commonly reconstructed as *qlajX. Note also similarities to Burmese အူ (u, “intestines”) (Luce, 1981).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese肉 “meat; flesh”
  • soundChinese要 “to demand; to ask; to request”

Related: Thai เอว, Burmese အူ

Meanings

character
  1. waist; lower back; small of the back (Classifier: 條／条 c)
  2. waist of clothes
  3. kidney; edible animal kidney
  4. purse; pockets
  5. middle part
  6. a surname, Yao

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 人體胯骨以上肋骨以下的部位。 例：柳腰、扭腰、腰酸背痛　◎
  2. 鳥獸昆蟲軀體及其他事物的中間部分。 例：山腰、廊腰、蜂腰
  3. 腎臟。 例：腰子、豬腰
  4. 繫掛在腰上的。 例：腰包、腰帶

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

How 腰 was written 字形演變

  1. 腰 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 腰 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 腰 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 腰