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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

見

jiàn
to see
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 見
  • 7 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

The character 見 is an ideogrammic compound consisting of the components 目 (eye) and 卩 (kneeling person). It depicts a kneeling human figure with a large eye for a head. The Shuowen Jiezi glosses the character as 視也 (to see) and notes it is composed of 卩 and 目.

This character was inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ken. It is recorded in oracle, bronze, chu, qin, seal, and regular scripts. The Moe Dictionary notes that it is the same as 現.

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*ken
  • componentChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”
  • componentChinese卩 “kneeling person”

Words built on it: 現, 視, 親, 觀, 覺, 看見, 規, 意見

Wiktionary etymology text

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意) - 目 (“eye”) + 卩 (“kneeling person”) – a kneeling human figure with a large eye for a head. Similar but unrelated to 艮. See also 夏 and 監.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ken.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. to see
  2. to meet; to see
  3. to meet with; to be exposed to
  4. to see; to refer to; vide
  5. to appear; to seem
  6. opinion, idea, view

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

見：視也。从儿从目。凡見之屬皆从見。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 同「現」。

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

How 見 was written 字形演變

  1. 見 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 見 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 見 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 見 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 見 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 見 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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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: 見