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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

離

lí
to leave; to depart
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 隹
  • 19 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *reːls, *rel, *rels): phonetic 离 (OC *rel, *r̥ʰel) + semantic 隹 (“bird”) – black-naped oriole (Oriolus chinensis). This sense is preserved in the compound 離黃.

Phonetically borrowed for the sense "to depart".

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g(r/l)aːj (“scatter, sow, dispersedly widely; wide; star”) (STEDT). See 侈 (OC *l̥ʰjalʔ, “extravagant”) for more.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*g(r/l)aːj “scatter, sow, dispersedly widely; wide; star”
  • soundChinese离 “a kind of legendary beast, alternative form of 魑”
  • meaningChinese隹 “short-tailed bird”

Words built on it: 離開

Meanings

character
  1. to leave; to depart
  2. to go away
  3. to separate
  4. to divorce
  5. away from
  6. ☲, the 3rd of the 8 trigrams

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

離：黃倉庚也。鳴則蠶生。从隹离聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 分別、分開。 例：分離、別離、離群索居
  2. 距、相隔。 例：距離、隔離
  3. 違反。 例：背離、叛離、離經叛道
  4. 缺少。 例：做蛋糕離不了蛋和麵粉。
  5. 八卦之一。卦形為☲。象徵火、日、電。
  6. 六十四卦之一。離（☲）下離（☲）上。表示以陰柔之質而得中正的意思。

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

How 離 was written 字形演變

  1. 離 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 離 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 離 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 離