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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

跟

gēn
heel (of a foot, a shoe or a sock)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 足
  • 13 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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Origin

The character 跟 is a phono-semantic compound. It consists of the semantic component 足 (foot) and the phonetic component 艮 (reconstructed as *kɯːns). According to the Shuowen Jiezi, the character means the heel of a foot (足踵也) and is composed of 足 with 艮 providing the sound. The phonetic component 艮 is one of the Eight Trigrams, symbolizing mountains, and contains the components 目 (eye) and 人 (man or person).

In addition to meaning the heel of a foot, shoe, or sock, the character can mean to follow, to marry, or to be with. Other recorded meanings include the rear part of an object, to accompany or attend, to be against or towards, and to be with or and. It is considered a cognate with 根 (reconstructed as *kɯːn, meaning "root"). The oldest attested scripts for this character are seal and regular scripts.

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

「跟」字是一個形聲字，由語義成分「足」與音符「艮」組成。在音韻上，其上古音重建為 *kɯːn。根據研究，它與「根」（上古音 *kɯːn）同源。在字形結構中，「艮」作為音符，象徵八卦中的艮卦（☶），代表山；而「艮」字本身包含「人」與「目」兩個組成部分。

從字形演變來看，最早的文字形式包括篆書與楷書。除了指代腳跟或鞋襪的後部，這個字在用法上延伸至隨行、隨侍，以及表示「和」、「與」或「對著」等意義。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese足 “foot”
  • soundChinese艮 “one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦, symbolizing mountains. (☶)”
    • ideaChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”
    • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
Wiktionary etymology text

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kɯːn): semantic 足 (“foot”) + phonetic 艮 (OC *kɯːns).

Cognate with 根 (OC *kɯːn, “root”) (Wang, 1982).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. heel (of a foot, a shoe or a sock)
  2. to follow
  3. to marry
  4. with (together)
  5. as (in comparisons)
  6. to; with

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

跟：足踵也。从足𥃩聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 物體的後部。 例：腳跟、鞋跟
  2. 隨行、隨侍。 例：跟班
  3. 和、與。 例：這趟旅行，我跟他一起去。
  4. 對、向。 例：我已經跟他說過了，可是他仍然堅持己見。

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

How 跟 was written 字形演變

  1. 跟 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 跟 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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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: 跟