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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

陰

yīn
cloudy; overcast; gloomy
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 阜
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

According to Shuowen, a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *qrɯm): semantic 阜 + phonetic 侌 (yīn).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *r(u/i)m (“dark; shade; dusk; twilight”); compare Tibetan རུམ (rum, “darkness”), Jingpho rim (“to be dusk”) (Benedict, 1972; Bodman, 1980; STEDT).

Schuessler (2007) compares it instead to Burmese အုံ့ (um., “to become overcast”), Adi mugyum (“shade; shadow”), Lepcha ᰠᰨᰌᰤᰪᰮ (so-dyŭm, “shade”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*r(u/i)m “dark; shade; dusk; twilight”
  • meaningChinese阜 “mound”
  • soundChinese侌

Related: Tibetan རུམ, Jingpho rim, Burmese အုံ့, Adi mugyum, Lepcha ᰠᰨᰌᰤᰪᰮ

Meanings

character
  1. cloudy; overcast; gloomy
  2. hidden; secret
  3. negative
  4. the Moon
  5. shade; shadow
  6. north of a mountain or south of a river

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

陰：闇也。水之南、山之北也。从𨸏侌聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 月亮。與「陽」相對。後古人用來泛指對立事物中的一方。如日、天、男為陽，月、地、女為陰。 例：太陰、陰曆
  2. 雲層濃厚，遮住陽光的現象。與「晴」相對。 例：陰天、陰雨　◎
  3. 隱密的、不光明的。 例：陰險、陰謀、陰溝
  4. 有關死人或鬼魂的。 例：陰間、陰曹、陰宅
  5. 山的北面或水的南岸。如淮陰位於淮河的南面。
  6. 凹的。 例：陰文

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

How 陰 was written 字形演變

  1. 陰 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 陰 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 陰 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 陰 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 陰 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 陰 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 陰