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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

險

xiǎn
difficult and treacherous
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • radical 阜
  • 16 strokes
  • 礆
  • 硷

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *qʰramʔ): semantic 阝 + phonetic 僉 (OC *skʰlam).

May be cognate with 巖 (OC *ŋraːm, “tall; cliff”). See 嚴 for more.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese阜 “mound”
  • soundChinese僉 “all; together; unanimous”
    • ideaChinese亼 “mouth”
      • ideaChinese入 “to enter; to go into”
      • ideaChinese一 “one”
    • ideaChinese兄 “elder brother”
      • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
      • ideaChinese儿 “standing person”
    • ideaChinese吅 “to speak loudly”
    • ideaChinese从 “two people standing together”

Meanings

character
  1. difficult and treacherous
  2. narrow pass; treacherous place; strategic point
  3. danger; hazard; peril; risk
  4. dangerous; hazardous
  5. sinister; vicious
  6. almost; nearly

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

險：阻，難也。从𨸏僉聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 地勢惡劣的地方。 例：天險、重險、無險可守
  2. 艱困、危急。 例：險局、險象環生、脫離險境
  3. 無法預料安危成敗的事。 例：冒險、風險、鋌而走險
  4. 保險的略稱。 例：壽險、火險、車險
  5. 邪惡狠毒、陰沉難測。 例：陰險、奸險
  6. 幾乎、差一點。 例：險遭毒手

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

How 險 was written 字形演變

  1. 險 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  2. 險 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  3. 險 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 險 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: 險