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

藝

/i⁵¹/

art

HSK 3
radical 艸
19 strokes

Etymology graph

inherited
borrowed
derived
parts
meaning component
sound component
related

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Origin

Originally written as 埶 (OC *ŋeds). The 艸 (“grass; plant”) and 云 were added later.

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埶
partChinese云 “to say; to speak (used when quoting from a source)”

Words built on it: 藝術

Meanings

character

art
skill; talent
limit; bound; norm
to plant; to grow

國語辭典 definitions

才能、技能。例：工藝、技藝、多才多藝
藝術、文事。例：藝林、文藝

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

How 藝 was written 字形演變

Oracle bone
甲骨文
Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
Bronze
金文
Shang–Zhou
Chu slips & silk
楚系簡帛
Warring States
Small seal
說文小篆
Shuowen, c. 100 CE
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
Written form — n/a
Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiktionary: 藝