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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

送

sòng
to see someone off
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 辵
  • 10 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sloːŋs): semantic 辶 (“to walk”) + phonetic 灷 (zhuàn).

Derivative: 餸／𩠌 (sung3, “(Cantonese) accompanying dish”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese辵 “to walk for a while and be still for a while”
    • ideaChinese彳 “to walk slowly”
    • ideaChinese止 “foot”
  • soundChinese灷 “tinder”
    • ideaChinese火 “fire; flame (Classifier: 把 m; 團／团 m)”
    • ideaChinese廾 “both hands”

Meanings

character
  1. to see someone off
  2. to send; to dispatch; to deliver
  3. to give; to offer; to gift
  4. to lose; to sacrifice
  5. to accompany (a staple food, medicine, drinks, etc.)
  6. a surname: Song

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

送：遣也。从辵，㑞省。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 遣去。 例：遣送
  2. 陪伴著走。 例：護送、送葬、送別
  3. 贈給、付出。 例：贈送、送死、雪中送炭
  4. 傳達、輸出。 例：送貨、送信、送秋波

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

How 送 was written 字形演變

  1. 送 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 送 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 送 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 送 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: 送