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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

雞

jī
chicken; fowl; pheasant (Classifier: 隻／只 m c j mn)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 隹
  • 18 strokes
  • 鳼
  • 𪉃

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *keː): phonetic 奚 (OC *ɡeː) + semantic 隹 (“short-tailed bird”).

Onomatopoeic (Schuessler, 2007). Compare Proto-Vietic *r-kaa (> Vietnamese gà), Proto-Tai *kajᴮ (“chicken”), Proto-Hmong-Mien *Kəi.

* (to fire): From 無情雞 /无情鸡 (mou⁴ cing⁴ gai¹, “pink slip”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese奚 “where? what? how? why?”
  • meaningChinese隹 “short-tailed bird”

Related: Proto-Vietic *r-kaa, Vietnamese gà, Proto-Tai *kajᴮ, Proto-Hmong-Mien *Kəi

Meanings

character
  1. chicken; fowl; pheasant (Classifier: 隻／只 m c j mn)
  2. Rooster (10th of the Chinese zodiac signs)
  3. female prostitute
  4. penis, cock
  5. whistle
  6. trigger (of a gun)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

雞：知時畜也。从隹奚聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 動物名。鳥綱雞形目。常見的家禽。嘴短，上嘴稍微彎曲。頭部有紅色肉冠，雄雞的肉冠較大。翅膀短，飛行能力不佳。品種繁多，如土雞、來亨雞等。　◎

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

How 雞 was written 字形演變

  1. 雞 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 雞 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 雞 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 雞 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 雞 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 雞 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: 雞