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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

輕

qīng
light (of low weight)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 車
  • 14 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kʰeŋ, *kʰeŋs): semantic 車 (“carriage”) + phonetic 巠 (OC *keːŋ). The word originally referred to a kind of light carriage.

STEDT and Schuessler relate this to Proto-Tibeto-Burman *r-jaːŋ (“light (weight); lightweight”), but the initial in the Chinese word is incompatible.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese車 “land vehicle; (specifically) car (Classifier: 輛／辆 m; 部 m c; 臺／台 m mn; 架 c; 頂／顶 mn; 張／张 mn-t; 乘 m)”
  • soundChinese巠 “streams running underground”

Words built on it: 年輕

Meanings

character
  1. light (of low weight)
  2. small; little; slight; minor; insignificant
  3. lightweight; portable; convenient to carry or manoeuvre
  4. rash; rattlebrained
  5. frivolous; skittish; giddy
  6. easy; simple; relaxed

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

輕：輕車也。从車坙聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 重量小。與「重」相對。 例：棉花比鐵輕。　◎
  2. 幼、少。 例：年輕
  3. 程度淺薄。 例：輕妝、輕罪、病情輕
  4. 不重視、瞧不起。 例：輕生、輕敵、文人相輕
  5. 隨便、不莊重。 例：輕佻、輕率、輕舉妄動
  6. 力量微弱。 例：輕風、輕聲、輕放

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

How 輕 was written 字形演變

  1. 輕 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 輕 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 輕 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 輕 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 輕