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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

贏

yíng
to win; to triumph; to be victorious
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 貝
  • 20 strokes
  • ⿱亡⿵𠘨贝

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *leŋ): phonetic 𦝠 (luó) + semantic 貝 (“cowry; money”).

Despite STEDT, probably not related to 盈 (OC *leŋ, “to fill; full, surplus”), in light of Baxter and Sagart's reconstruction of the Old Chinese pronunciation. Instead, note similarities to Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔoŋ¹ (“to win, complete”), whence Burmese အောင် (aung, “to be victorious”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese𦝠
  • meaningChinese貝 “shellfish; cowrie”

Related: Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔoŋ¹, Burmese အောင်

Meanings

character
  1. to win; to triumph; to be victorious
  2. to beat; to defeat (someone); to triumph over
  3. to make a profit
  4. Used with 不 or 得 to express capability.

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

贏：有餘、賈利也。从貝𦝠聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 從事買賣所獲得的利益。 例：贏利、贏餘
  2. 得勝。與「輸」相對。 例：贏棋、贏球、贏家

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

How 贏 was written 字形演變

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