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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

通

tōng
to pass through; to travel through; to go through; or, to allow passage
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 辵
  • 11 strokes
  • 亙
  • 亘

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *l̥ʰoːŋ): semantic 辶 + phonetic 甬 (OC *loŋʔ).

Note similarities to Burmese လှောင်း (hlaung:, “to pervade”).

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甬 “handle of a bell”

Words built on it: 交通, 通知, 普通, 通常, 通信, 通過

Meanings

character
  1. to pass through; to travel through; to go through; or, to allow passage
  2. to get through
  3. to open up; to clear out; to unblock
  4. to lead to; to go to
  5. to understand; to know
  6. to connect; to communicate

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

通：達也。从辵甬聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 沒有堵塞，可以貫穿或穿透的。 例：流通、貫通、四通八達
  2. 往來、交往。 例：通信、通商、互通有無
  3. 傳達、報告。 例：通知、通報、通風報信
  4. 廣泛的、共同的。 例：通性、通則、通病
  5. 全部、整個。 例：通宵、通盤考慮、通通有獎
  6. 明白、了解、熟悉。 例：他上通天文，下知地理。

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

How 通 was written 字形演變

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