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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

酸

suān
sour; tart
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 酉
  • 14 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sloːn): semantic 酉 + phonetic 夋 (OC *sʰlun).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *səwr (“sour; be acid”) (STEDT, under *suːr ⪤ *swaːr). Cognate with Mizo thûr (“acid; sour”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*səwr “sour; be acid”
  • meaningChinese酉 “an alcoholic drink vessel”
  • soundChinese夋 “to dawdle”

Related: Mizo thûr

Meanings

character
  1. sour; tart
  2. acid
  3. vinegar
  4. sick at heart; grieved; sad
  5. stingy; miserly
  6. narrow-minded; pedantic

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

酸：酢也。从酉夋聲。關東謂酢曰酸。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 像醋的味道或氣味。 例：這道菜真酸，讓人難以下嚥。
  2. 食物腐壞產生的怪味道。 例：這杯牛奶已經酸了，不能喝了。
  3. 悲痛的。 例：心酸、辛酸
  4. 小氣、迂腐。 例：寒酸、窮酸
  5. 微痛無力的感覺。同「痠」。
  6. 化學上指在水溶液中進行電解時，能產生氫離子的化合物。酸性溶液以石蕊試之，呈紅色。 例：硝酸、硫酸、鹽酸

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

How 酸 was written 字形演變

  1. 酸 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 酸 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 酸 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: 酸