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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

若

/ɻu̯ɔ⁵¹/
to be obedient to; compliant
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 艸
  • 9 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Pictogram (象形) – a person combing their hair; obedient.

Later 口 was added and the original component came to be written 叒.

; “you; your”

; "like this; such; if"

; "that"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese草 “herbaceous plant; herb; weed; wort; grass; forb”
    • meaningChinese艸 “grass”
    • soundChinese早 “early; in advance; soon”
      • meaningChinese日 “Sun”
      • soundChinese棗 “jujube; Chinese date”
      • ideaChinese甲 “shell; carapace”
  • partChinese右 “right (direction)”
    • soundChinese又 “again; once more”
    • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Meanings

character
  1. to be obedient to; compliant
  2. to trim vegetables
  3. to choose
  4. you; your
  5. he; his
  6. like; as if

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

若：擇菜也。从艸、右。右，手也。一曰杜若，香艸。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 及、比得上。 例：他現在的作品已經不若以往出色。
  2. 似、好像。 例：欣喜若狂、旁若無人、虛懷若谷
  3. 你、你的。 例：吾翁即若翁。（《史記．卷七．項羽本紀》）
  4. 連詞。如果、假如，表示假設。 例：假若、倘若、若非

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

How 若 was written 字形演變

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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 若