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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

雷

léi
thunder
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 雨
  • 13 strokes

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Origin

Ancient simplification of 靁, which was a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ruːl): semantic 雨 (“rain”) + phonetic 畾 (OC *ruːl).

The Northern Min initial s- may be due to the loss of a pre-initial which might have been a velar considering dialect forms in Henan, Hebei and Shanxi, e.g. Taiyuan Jin 忽雷 (hueh4 lui1) (Schuessler, 2007).

Perhaps from Sino-Tibetan. Compare Mizo râwl (“voice; cry (of an animal); sound”), Tibetan ཁྲོལ (khrol).

* (spoiler): Clipping of 捏他八雷 (niētābāléi), from Japanese ネタバレ (netabare).

* (loyalty): by homophony of 二 (ji⁶, “two”) and 義 /义 (ji⁶, “spirit of loyalty”).

* (to lay off): from Phono-semantic matching of English lay off.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese雨 “rain (Classifier: 陣／阵; 場／场)”
  • soundChinese畾 “soil margin between croplands”

Related: Mizo râwl, Tibetan ཁྲོལ

Meanings

character
  1. thunder
  2. lightning
  3. explosive device; mine
  4. to astonish; to shock
  5. astonishment; surprise
  6. burdensome

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 大氣放電時，激盪空氣所發出的巨響。 例：打雷、雷雨、春雷
  2. 爆炸性的武器。 例：地雷、水雷、魚雷
  3. 形容聲音很大。 例：瓦釜雷鳴
  4. 姓。

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

How 雷 was written 字形演變

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