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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

錶

biǎo
watch (portable timepiece) (Classifier: 塊／块 m)
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 金
  • 16 strokes
  • 𰾍

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Origin

Differentiated character from 表 (biǎo) coined c. 1900.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese釒 “Left radical form of 金”
  • partChinese表 “outer garment”
    • ideaChinese衣 “garment; clothes; clothing (Classifier: 件)”
    • ideaChinese毛 “hair (of humans or animals); fur; feather (Classifier: 根 m; 條／条 c; 支 mn)”

Meanings

character
  1. watch (portable timepiece) (Classifier: 塊／块 m)
  2. wristwatch (Classifier: 隻／只 c)
  3. gauge; meter; instrument

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 比時鐘小，可隨身攜帶的計時器。 例：手錶、懷錶

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

How 錶 was written 字形演變

  1. 錶 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 錶 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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 錶