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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.

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Chinese

船

chuán
watercraft; vessel (including ships, boats, sailing ships, hovercrafts; sometimes including submarines) (Classifier: 條／条 m; 艘 m; 隻／只 m c mn mn-t; 架 c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 4
  • radical 舟
  • 11 strokes
  • 舩

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɦljon): semantic 舟 (“boat”) + phonetic 㕣 (OC *lon).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-lawŋ (“boat”). Compare Burmese လောင်း (laung:, “long and narrow boat”), and Mizo lawng (“boat or ship”).

Sagart (1999) interprets Old Chinese 船 (OC *ɦljon) as a nominal derivate of the verb 沿 (OC *lon, “to go downstream a river”). The Fangyan states that this word was commonly used in western China, but, by Han times, it had completely displaced the earlier 舟 (OC *tjɯw), used in central and eastern China.

Alternatively, the Proto-Sino-Tibetan root could be a loan from Proto-Mon-Khmer *d₂lu(u)ŋ ~ *d₂l(u)əŋ (“boat”), whence Mon ဂၠုၚ် (klɜ̀ŋ, “canoe, small boat”), perhaps a derivate of Proto-Mon-Khmer *luŋh ~ *luuŋh ~ *ləŋh (“to hollow, excavate, bore”), see Khmer លុង (lung, “to dig a hole”) and Vietnamese trũng (“concave”) (Sidwell, 2006; Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*m-lawŋ “boat”
  • meaningChinese舟 “boat (Classifier: 葉／叶; 艘; 條／条; 隻／只)”
  • soundChinese㕣 “marsh in between mountains”

Related: Burmese လောင်း, Mizo lawng, Proto-Mon-Khmer *d₂luuŋ, Mon ဂၠုၚ်, Proto-Mon-Khmer *luuŋ(h), Khmer លុង, Vietnamese trũng

Meanings

character
  1. watercraft; vessel (including ships, boats, sailing ships, hovercrafts; sometimes including submarines) (Classifier: 條／条 m; 艘 m; 隻／只 m c mn mn-t; 架 c)
  2. an object with a shape or function similar to watercraft
  3. scholarship
  4. alcohol cup
  5. to carry by watercraft
  6. button

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

船：舟也。从舟，鉛省聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 在水上航行的交通工具。 例：汽船、輪船、帆船
  2. 形狀或作用類似船的物體。 例：太空船

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

How 船 was written 字形演變

  1. 船 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 船 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 船 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: 船