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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

覺

jué
to become aware; to dawn on; to awaken to
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • radical 見
  • 20 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kruːɡs, *kruːɡ): phonetic 𦥯 (OC *ɡruːɡ) + semantic 見 (“see”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kruk (“rouse; awaken; disturb”). Cognate with Old Chinese 學 (*ɡruːɡ, “to learn; to study”), 攪 (*kruːʔ, “to disturb”), Tibetan དཀྲུག (dkrug, “to agitate; to rouse”) (Hill, 2012, 2019).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*kruk “rouse; awaken; disturb”
  • soundChinese𦥯 “Used as a component in several characters.”
  • meaningChinese見 “to see”
    • componentChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”
    • componentChinese卩 “kneeling person”

Related: Old Chinese 學, Tibetan དཀྲུག

Words built on it: 覺得, 感覺, 睡覺

Meanings

character
  1. to become aware; to dawn on; to awaken to
  2. to feel; to think
  3. sense; sensation; feeling
  4. a surname, Jue

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

覺：寤也。从見，學省聲。一曰發也。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 感受到、意識到。 例：發覺、警覺、覺悟
  2. 感官接受外物刺激產生的辨識反應。 例：知覺、味覺、視覺
  3. 賢能且有智慧的人。 例：先覺

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

How 覺 was written 字形演變

  1. 覺 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 覺 in Clerical script
    Clerical
    隸書
    Han
  3. 覺 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: 覺