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

鍾

/ʈ͡ʂʊŋ⁵⁵/

vessel for containing alcohol

HSK 2
radical 金
17 strokes
鐘
鈡
钟

Etymology graph

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Origin

No etymology text yet. The graph shows what is known from the sources.

Lineage

partChinese釒 “Left radical form of 金”
partChinese重 “heavy”
- meaningChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
- soundChinese東 “east”

Meanings

character

vessel for containing alcohol
to concentrate one's love or attention
unit of capacity
younger brother
a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

鍾：酒器也。从金重聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

盛酒的器具。亦指酒杯。例：酒鍾、琉璃鍾
聚集、集中。例：情有獨鍾、鍾靈毓秀
量詞。古代計算容量的單位。一鍾約等於六斛四斗。例：千鍾粟
姓。

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

How 鍾 was written 字形演變

Bronze
金文
Shang–Zhou
Small seal
說文小篆
Shuowen, c. 100 CE
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
說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0