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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

著

zhuó
to attach to; to stick to; to adhere to
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 10
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 艸
  • 12 strokes
  • 囉
  • 啰

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *taʔ, *tas, *da, *taɡ, *daɡ): semantic 艸 (“grass; plant”) + phonetic 者 (OC *tjaːʔ).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-ta-t (“to put; to place”). Cognate with Tibetan སྟད (stad, “to put on; to lay on”), སྟ་གོན (sta gon, “preparation; arrangement”), Burmese ထား (hta:, “to put; to place”). See also 署 (OC *djas, “to put, place”) (STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese箸 “chopsticks (Classifier: 雙／双; 奇 md mn)”
    • meaningChinese竹 “bamboo (Classifier: 枝; 棵 m; 根 m; 轆／辘 c)”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*s-ta-t “to put; to place”
  • meaningChinese艸 “grass”
  • soundChinese者 “Used at the end of a command.”

Related: Tibetan སྟད, Burmese ထား

Words built on it: 著名, 著作

Meanings

character
  1. to attach to; to stick to; to adhere to
  2. to touch; to contact
  3. to wear; to put on; to be dressed in; clothing
  4. to put; to place
  5. to arrange
  6. to blossom or bear fruit

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 穿上。 例：著衣、穿著
  2. 到達、接觸。 例：著陸、不著邊際
  3. 依附，使依附。 例：著色、著墨
  4. 命令、差使。 例：著人前來
  5. 下棋行子。 例：棋高一著

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

How 著 was written 字形演變

  1. 著 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 著 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 著 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 著