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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

鎮

zhèn
to press down; to suppress; to repress; to subdue
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 6
  • radical 金
  • 18 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *tin, *tins): semantic 金 (“metal”) + phonetic 真 (OC *ʔljin) – to press down on (with a metal weight).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese金 “copper (Cu)”
  • soundChinese真 “true; genuine; real; actual”
    • meaningChinese貝 “shellfish; cowrie”
    • soundChinese𠂈

Meanings

character
  1. to press down; to suppress; to repress; to subdue
  2. to guard; to garrison
  3. to calm; to tranquilize; to sedate
  4. to awe; to frighten
  5. to cool; to chill
  6. stronghold; garrison

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 今地方政府的行政區域名稱。在縣之下，與鄉平行。 例：蘇澳鎮、斗南鎮
  2. 較大的市集稱為「鎮」。 例：城鎮、村鎮
  3. 用來鎮壓東西的器具。 例：書鎮、文鎮
  4. 壓制、壓服。 例：鎮壓、鎮邪、鎮暴
  5. 安定。 例：鎮靜、鎮邊、鎮國
  6. 用冰使飲料或水果冰涼。 例：冰鎮的酸梅湯喝起來清涼解渴。

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

How 鎮 was written 字形演變

  1. 鎮 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 鎮 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 鎮