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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

远

/joʊ̯³⁵/
The meaning of this term is uncertain.
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • radical 辵
  • 8 strokes
  • ⿺辶无

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声): semantic 辶 (“walk”) + phonetic 元.

Unorthodox variant simplified from 遠 (袁 → 元) found in various moveable type copies of classical novels. First attested in 《宋元以來俗字譜》, a variant forms dictionary compiled in 1930 that records unorthodox forms (俗字 (súzì)) that have existed since the Song dynasty.

Eventually adopted as an official simplified character by the People's Republic of China in the 1956 Chinese Character Simplification Scheme.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese遠 “distant; remote; far”
    • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*g-wəj-n “far”
    • soundChinese袁 “long”
      • ideaChinese衣 “garment; clothes; clothing (Classifier: 件)”
      • ideaChinese又 “again; once more”
  • meaningChinese辵 “to walk for a while and be still for a while”
    • ideaChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
    • ideaChinese止 “foot”
  • soundChinese元 “first; initial; primary; beginning”

Meanings

character
  1. The meaning of this term is uncertain.

How 远 was written 字形演變

  1. 远 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 远 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 远 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 远 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 远 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 远 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)
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 远