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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

錯

/t͡sʰu̯ɔ⁵¹/
wrong; erroneous; incorrect
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 金
  • 16 strokes
  • 䥄
  • 𫠀

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sʰaːɡs, *sʰaːɡ): semantic 金 (“metal”) + phonetic 昔 (OC *sjaːɡ) – grindstone.

; "whetstone, grindstone"

; "criss-cross, interlocking, alternating, ornate"

; "lake"

; "cerium"

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese金 “copper (Cu)”
  • soundChinese昔 “former times; the past; long ago; ancient times”
    • soundChinese龷
    • ideaChinese仌 “ice”
    • meaningChinese日 “Sun”

Words built on it: 不錯

Meanings

character
  1. wrong; erroneous; incorrect
  2. bad; poor; inferior; substandard
  3. to make a mistake; to blunder; to err
  4. error; mistake; fault
  5. lake

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

錯：金涂也。从金昔聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 不正確。與「對」相對。 例：錯字、錯誤、過錯
  2. 交雜。 例：交錯、錯亂、盤根錯節
  3. 岔開、失去。 例：機會難得，不要錯過！
  4. 差的、壞的。 例：他們的交情不錯。

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

How 錯 was written 字形演變

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