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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

豬

zhū
pig; hog; swine (Classifier: 頭／头 m; 口 m; 隻／只 c mn; 條／条 c h)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 豕
  • 15 strokes
  • 猪

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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ta): semantic 豕 (“pig”) + phonetic 者 (OC *tjaːʔ).

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan (Schuessler, 2007). Löffler (1966) considers Mru tia (“(wild) pig”) to be cognate.

Fangyan states that 豭 (OC *kraː) is a dialectal variant of 豬 (OC *ta), yet *kra was apparently older than *t(r)a and homophonic with 麚 (OC *kraː, “stag”); so instead *t(r)a is possibly an early rural dialectal variant (from the sound changes *ʈa < *tra < *Cra) of *kra, which would have had a general meaning of "male animal". See 豭 for more.

Etymology 2

Referring to the similar-sounding word 處／处 (cyu2).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese豕 “pig; boar”
  • soundChinese者 “Used at the end of a command.”

Related: Mru tia

Meanings

character
  1. pig; hog; swine (Classifier: 頭／头 m; 口 m; 隻／只 c mn; 條／条 c h)
  2. Pig; Boar (Chinese zodiac sign)
  3. pig (a lazy, lowly or contemptible person)
  4. stupid; foolish
  5. to act in a stupid or foolish manner

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

豬：豕而三毛叢居者。从豕者聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 動物名。哺乳類偶蹄目豬科。頭、耳大，眼小，四肢短小，軀體肥滿，鼻與口吻皆長。肉可食，皮可製革，鬃毛可製刷子。　◎

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

How 豬 was written 字形演變

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