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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

許

xǔ
to allow; to permit
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 言
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *hŋaʔ): semantic 言 (“speech; words”) + phonetic 午 (OC *ŋaːʔ).

; “place”

Etymology 2

Originally written as 鄦 (OC *hmaʔ), 𱢬 (among others) in pre-Qin texts. By the Han dynasty, it was homophonic with and written as 許, originally meaning “to allow; to promise”, due to voiceless nasals losing nasality, turning into x- (Zhang, 2022b).

Etymology 4

Zheng (2017) suggests that it is from 爾 (OC *njelʔ, “that”). Compare 耳 (OC *njɯʔ, “ear”) > Min Nan hī.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese言 “to say; to speak; to talk”
  • soundChinese午 “the seventh year of the Jovian orbital cycle”

Meanings

character
  1. to allow; to permit
  2. to promise
  3. to betroth
  4. to praise
  5. maybe; perhaps
  6. approximately

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

許：聽也。从言午聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 答應、應允。 例：許可、允許
  2. 期待。 例：期許、自許
  3. 稱讚。 例：稱許、讚許
  4. 表示約略估計的數量。 例：二里許、五萬許人
  5. 可能。 例：或許、也許
  6. 這麼、如此。 例：許多、許久

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

How 許 was written 字形演變

  1. 許 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 許 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 許 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 許 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 許 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: 許