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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

臨

lín
to overlook; to look over; to look down at
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 臣
  • 17 strokes
  • 凜
  • 斂
  • 凛
  • 敛

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) and phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *b·rɯm, *b·rɯms): semantic 臣 (“eye”) + semantic 人 (“person”) + phonetic 品 (OC *pʰrɯmʔ, “objects”) – a person looking down at some objects.

Alternatively analyzed as a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *b·rɯm, *b·rɯms): semantic 臥 + phonetic 品 (OC *pʰrɯmʔ).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese臣 “slave; servant; captive”
  • meaningChinese臥 “to lie down”
  • meaningChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
  • soundChinese品 “article; item; product; commodity”

Meanings

character
  1. to overlook; to look over; to look down at
  2. to come down; to descend
  3. to arrive
  4. to face; to border; to be adjacent to
  5. to be faced with; to be confronted by
  6. just before; approaching; about to

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

臨：監臨也。从臥品聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 從高處往下看。 例：居高臨下
  2. 來到、到達。 例：光臨、蒞臨、雙喜臨門
  3. 靠近、依傍。 例：臨窗而坐、臨門一腳
  4. 面對、遇到。 例：臨陣磨槍、臨危不亂
  5. 依照字、畫摹仿寫畫。 例：臨碑、臨帖
  6. 將要、正要。 例：臨別、臨行、臨終

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

How 臨 was written 字形演變

  1. 臨 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 臨 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 臨 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 臨 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 臨 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 臨 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: 臨