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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

蛋

dàn
egg (Classifier: 個／个 m; 顆／颗 m; 枚 m; 隻／只 c h)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 虫
  • 11 strokes
  • 鴠
  • 單
  • 𱉗
  • 单

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *l'aːns): phonetic 延 (OC *lan, *lans) + semantic 虫 (“snake, insect”) – "egg", with particular reference to snake eggs.

The non-contracted form is 蜑. In the current version, 延 is abbreviated to 疋.

This character was coined at a late stage in Chinese, since it is unattested on oracle bones, bronzes, Shuowen Jiezi and Guangyun.

From 彈 (MC danH, “pellet”) (Zhengzhang, 2003).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese延 “to prolong”
    • ideaChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
    • soundChinese丿 “left-falling stroke, usually read as 撇”
    • ideaChinese止 “foot”
    • meaningChinese㢟 “walk slowly, walk peacefully”
  • meaningChinese虫 “insect”

Words built on it: 蛋糕

Meanings

character
  1. egg (Classifier: 個／个 m; 顆／颗 m; 枚 m; 隻／只 c h)
  2. egg-shaped object
  3. ball; testicle
  4. suffix denoting “person of certain characteristics”, usually with a pejorative tone
  5. zero score; goose egg

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 鳥類和爬蟲類所生的卵。 例：雞蛋、蛇蛋
  2. 形狀像蛋的東西。 例：臉蛋兒、巨蛋球場
  3. 斥責或罵人的話。 例：笨蛋、壞蛋、糊塗蛋

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

How 蛋 was written 字形演變

  1. 蛋 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 蛋 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: 蛋