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

鎖

suǒ

lock (something used for fastening) (Classifier: 把 m c)

Phono-semantic compound 形聲
HSK 5
TOCFL 4
radical 金
18 strokes
鎻
鏁
锁
𬭲

Etymology graph

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *soːlʔ): semantic 金 (“metal”) + phonetic 𧴪 (suǒ).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

meaningChinese金 “copper (Cu)”
soundChinese𧴪 “fragments”

Meanings

character

lock (something used for fastening) (Classifier: 把 m c)
lock-shaped thing
lock (mutex or other token restricting access to a resource)
chain
to lock; to lock up
to seal; to close; to seal off

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

鎖：𨮯鎖，門鍵也。从金𧴪聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

安裝在門、箱、櫃等開合處，必須用鑰匙或暗碼打開的金屬器具。例：銅鎖、車鎖、對號鎖
用鎖關住。例：鎖門
蹙緊、緊皺。例：愁眉深鎖
一種縫紉方法。用線順著布邊或扣眼密縫。例：鎖邊、鎖口

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

How 鎖 was written 字形演變

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

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: 鎖