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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

複

/fu⁵¹/
lined garment
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • radical 衣
  • 15 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *buɡs, *puɡ): semantic 衣 (“clothes”) + phonetic 复 (OC *buɡ, “to return”) – lined garment.

Cognate with 復 (OC *buɡs, *buɡ, “to return; again”) (Schuessler, 2007). See there for more.

覆 (OC *pʰuɡ, “to turn over; to overturn”) is an aspiration causative/iterative form of 複 (OC *puɡ), hence literally "to make something double over".

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese衣 “garment; clothes; clothing (Classifier: 件)”
  • soundChinese复 “to go back”

Meanings

character
  1. lined garment
  2. to repeat; to double; to overlap
  3. duplicate; double; overlapping
  4. complex
  5. again

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

複：重衣皃。从衣复聲。一曰褚衣。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 多於一的。與「單」相對。 例：複詞、複選、複姓
  2. 重、又、再次。 例：重複、複習、複製品
  3. 繁雜的。 例：繁複、複雜

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

How 複 was written 字形演變

  1. 複 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 複 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 複 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: 複