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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

藏

cáng
to hide; to conceal
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 艸
  • 18 strokes
  • 狀
  • 潛
  • 状
  • 潜
  • 葱

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *zaːŋ, *zaːŋs): semantic 艸 (“grass”) + phonetic 臧 (OC *ʔsaːŋ).

Baxter and Sagart (2014) reconstructs 藏 (OC *m-tsʰˤaŋ, “to store”) with an *m- prefix, which changes 倉 (OC *tsʰˁaŋ, “granary”) into a volitional verb. Cognate with Tibetan གསང (gsang, “secret; conceal”), འཚང ('tshang, “to press into”) (Schuessler, 2007); STEDT provisionally reconstructs Proto-Tibeto-Burman *C-(t)saŋ (“to bury; to conceal”). Note also similarities to Burmese ဆင့် (hcang., “to stack up”).

Etymology 2

Departing tone derivative of etymology 1.

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Tibetan གཙང (gtsang).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese艸 “grass”
  • soundChinese臧 “good; right; generous”
    • ideaChinese臣 “slave; servant; captive”
    • soundChinese戕 “to kill”
      • soundChinese爿 “piece of wood or bamboo (made by chopping)”
    • ideaChinese戈 “dagger-axe (an ancient Chinese weapon similar to a halberd)”
  • borrowedTibetanགཙང “clean; pure”

Related: Tibetan གསང, Proto-Tibeto-Burman *tsaŋ, Burmese ဆင့်

Meanings

character
  1. to hide; to conceal
  2. to hide
  3. to store; to lay
  4. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

藏：匿也。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 儲存。 例：藏書、收藏、冬藏
  2. 隱匿。 例：躲藏、藏拙

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

How 藏 was written 字形演變

  1. 藏 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 藏 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 藏 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 藏 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: 藏