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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

都

dū
metropolis; large city
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 1
  • radical 邑
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

The character 都 is a phono-semantic compound. It is composed of the semantic component 邑, meaning a state, country, or nation, and the phonetic component 者. The component 邑 itself is formed from 囗 (box, enclosure) and 卪 (joint, node). According to the Shuowen Jiezi, the character refers to the old ancestral temples of a former ruler. It also notes that in the Zhou Li, a distance of five hundred li constitutes a 都.

In addition to its meaning as a capital or large city, it serves as a colloquial form of 諸. The character appears in several ancient scripts, including bronze, chu, qin, seal, and regular scripts. It is also recorded as a surname.

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

「都」在字義上指大城市、大都市，或是中央及地方政府的所在地，也可以作為姓氏。此外，它也包含優雅、大方的意思，或是指設立首都、使某地成為首都。在音韻方面，根據 Wiktionary 的說法，此字為形聲字，其上古音重建為 *taː，由表示意義的「邑」與表示聲音的「者」（上古音重建為 *tjaːʔ）所構成。

除了作為「大城市」或「首都」之意，Schuessler (2007) 指出，「都」也是「諸」（上古音重建為 *tja，意為「全部」）的口語形式。在文字紀錄方面，此字已見於青銅器、楚系文字、秦系文字、小篆與隸書，以及楷書。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • soundChinese者 “Used at the end of a command.”
  • meaningChinese邑 “state; country; nation”
    • ideaChinese囗 “box, enclosure”
    • ideaChinese卪 “joint; node”

Words built on it: 首都, 都市, 大都

Wiktionary etymology text
Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *taː): phonetic 者 (OC *tjaːʔ) + semantic 邑 (“town, city”).

Etymology 2

Colloquial form of 諸 (OC *tja, “all”) (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. metropolis; large city
  2. capital; capital city
  3. to make a place the capital city; to establish a capital
  4. graceful; elegant
  5. a surname, Du

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

都：有先君之舊宗廟曰都。从邑者聲。周禮：距國五百里爲都。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 中央政府及地方政府的所在地。 例：首都、國都、京都
  2. 大城市。 例：都市、花都、港都
  3. 姓。

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

How 都 was written 字形演變

  1. 都 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 都 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 都 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 都 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 都 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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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: 都