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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

量

liáng
to measure
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 里
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

Inconclusive. In the oracle bone and bronze scripts, the most common form was 日 (“sun”) + 東 (“bag; east”). Here are a few proposed interpretations as an ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意):

* 日 was sometimes replaced with 田, so Qiu Xigui thinks that it may be the original character of 糧 (OC *raŋ, “grain field”).

* Yu Xingwu interprets it as measuring something under the sun.

* Guo Moruo interprets it as the sun rising in the east – original character of 亮 (OC *raŋs).

* Huang Dekuan suspects the 日 is actually 昜 (OC *laŋ) as the phonetic component.

Shuowen interprets this as a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *raŋ, *raŋs): phonetic 曏 (OC *qʰjaŋʔ, *qʰjaŋs, *qʰaŋʔ, *qʰaŋs) + semantic 重 (“weight; heavy”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-raŋ (“to count, to measure”) (STEDT under *(g/k)raŋ; Schuessler, 2007). Cognate to Tibetan བགྲང (bgrang, “to count”), Khaling ʾkhran-ne, Burmese ခြင် (hkrang, “to measure capacity”), Nusu xɹɯ³¹ (“to count”).

Pronunciation 2 is possibly an *-s-suffixed exopassive derivation of Pronunciation 1; thus it means "what is measured → a measure" and is cognate to Tibetan གྲངས (grangs, “number”) (see also Unger (1983))

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*k-raŋ “to count, to measure”
  • componentChinese日 “Sun”
  • soundChinese曏 “in the near past; in the past; formerly”
    • soundChinese鄉 “township”
      • ideaChinese𠨍 “order, regulation”
      • ideaChinese皀 “Prepared food, a vessel full of food (as in 即 and 既, in which is simplified)”
  • componentChinese東 “east”
  • meaningChinese重 “heavy”
    • meaningChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”

Related: Tibetan བགྲང, Khaling ʾkhran-ne, Burmese ခြင်, Nusu xɹɯ³¹, Tibetan གྲངས

Words built on it: 大量, 力量, 商量, 含量, 重量, 能量

Meanings

character
  1. to measure
  2. to estimate; to evaluate

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

量：稱輕重也。从重省，曏省聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 用作計算標準的容器，如斗、量杯等。 例：度量衡
  2. 數量、數目。 例：含量、流量、降雨量
  3. 能容納或承受的限度。 例：容量、器量
  4. 估計、審度。 例：不自量力、量入為出、量力而為

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

How 量 was written 字形演變

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