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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

部

bù
part; division; section
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 邑
  • 11 strokes

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, OC *boːʔ, *boːʔ, *boːʔ, *boːʔ): phonetic 咅 (OC *pʰɯʔ, *pʰl'oːs) + semantic 邑. It originally refers to a place in today's Gansu.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese咅 “A sound used to indicate refusal.”
    • meaningChinese丶 “An ancient punctuation mark.”
    • soundChinese否 “nay; no; negative”
      • soundChinese不 “not; un-; in-; il-; im-; ir-”
      • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • meaningChinese邑 “state; country; nation”
    • ideaChinese囗 “box, enclosure”
    • ideaChinese卪 “joint; node”

Words built on it: 全部, 西部, 南部, 北部, 部分, 一部分, 大部分, 中部, 外部

Meanings

character
  1. part; division; section
  2. department; ministry
  3. An administrative division governed by a ministry.
  4. Classifier for works of literature, films, machines (cars, telephones...), etc. ⇒ all nouns using this classifier

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

部：天水狄部。从邑咅聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 全體中的一分。 例：局部、部分、頭部
  2. 中央政府院以下的行政機關名稱。 例：教育部、外交部、國防部
  3. 專指機關中分別擔任不同職務的單位。 例：總部、司令部、編輯部
  4. 統轄、統率。 例：所部眾多
  5. 部首的簡稱。 例：「布」字是屬「巾部」。
  6. 量詞

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

How 部 was written 字形演變

  1. 部 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 部 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 部 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: 部