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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

足

zú
foot
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 足
  • 7 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Etymology 1

Pictogram (象形) of a leg; similar to 疋.

Uncertain. Compare Proto-Mon-Khmer *ɟuŋ ~ *ɟuəŋ ~ *ɟəŋ (“leg, foot”), whence Mon ဇိုၚ် (cf. Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 2

Probably Sino-Tibetan; compare Tibetan ཆོག (chog, “to be sufficient”) (Coblin, 1986).

Etymology 3

From etymology 2, with *-s (“causative, outwardly directed action”) (Schuessler, 2007; Baxter and Sagart, 2014).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • partChinese卜 “to divine”
  • partChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”

Related: Tibetan ཆོག

Words built on it: 跟, 路, 跑, 足球, 跳, 不足, 踢, 跨

Meanings

character
  1. foot
  2. leg (of an animal)
  3. leg (of an object)
  4. football; soccer
  5. to walk
  6. to tread; to stamp; to step

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

足：人之足也。在下。从止、口。凡足之屬皆从足。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 人體下肢的總稱。也專指踝骨以下的部分，今稱為「腳」。 例：舉足、手足
  2. 動物的下肢，用來奔走或爬行。 例：節足動物、百足之蟲、畫蛇添足
  3. 器物下面支撐的部分。 例：鼎足
  4. 夠量的、不缺乏的。 例：充足、心滿意足、豐衣足食
  5. 充分、可以。 例：足供參考、足慰吾懷、足以自豪
  6. 值得。 例：何足掛齒、微不足道

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

How 足 was written 字形演變

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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 足