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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

術

shù
street; avenue
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 行
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɦljud): semantic 行 (“street, path”) + phonetic 朮 (OC *l'ud, *ɦljud).

For the “to throw” definition, from English shoot.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • borrowedEnglishshoot “To fire (a weapon that releases a bullet or other projectile).”
    • inheritedMiddle Englishscheten
      • inheritedOld Englishsċēotan
  • meaningChinese行 “to walk”
    • componentChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
    • componentChinese亍 “to stop; to stand still”
  • soundChinese朮 “original form of 秫 (shú, “glutinous millet; sorghum”)”

Words built on it: 藝術

Meanings

character
  1. street; avenue
  2. art; craft; skill; technique
  3. method; tactics
  4. to dupe; to hoodwink; to scam
  5. to run quickly
  6. quickly; swiftly; at lightning speed

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

術：邑中道也。从行术聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 技藝。 例：武術、美術、醫術
  2. 方法、策略。 例：戰術、權術、仁術

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

How 術 was written 字形演變

  1. 術 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 術 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 術 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 術