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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

青

qīng
blue-green ("grue"); blue (of sky, stone etc.); green (of grass, plants, mountains etc.)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 青
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Zhang (2022): Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, *tsʰˤeŋ): phonetic 生 (*sreŋ) + phonetic 井 (*tseŋʔ).

Shuowen interprets it as an ideogrammic compound of 生 (“growth of plants”) + 丹 (“cinnabar”). A variant inspired by this interpretation is 𤯞. The implication being that cinnabar, being used for dyeing, would imply “color” in general, giving the combined meaning “color of growing plants” → “blue-green”.

In the modern glyph, the top component is reduced to 龶, and the bottom component resembles the unrelated 月 (yuè, “moon”).

The second-round simplified form of the character is based on the calligraphic form of the character.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sreŋ (“to live; to be alive; to give birth; raw; green”). Cognate with 生 (OC *sʰleːŋ, *sreŋs, “to live”), 蒼 (OC *sʰaːŋ, “green; blue”), 性 (OC *sleŋs, “nature”), 姓 (OC *sleŋs, “surname”). Note 蒼 (OC *sʰaːŋ) may be an old dialect variant of 青 (OC *sʰleːŋ) (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese生 “to live; to subsist; to exist”
    • ideaChinese屮 “new birth of plant”
    • ideaChinese一 “one”
  • soundChinese井 “well (a hole sunk into the ground) (Classifier: 口; 眼)”

Words built on it: 請, 青年, 青少年, 猜, 晴, 清, 靜, 青春

Meanings

character
  1. blue-green ("grue"); blue (of sky, stone etc.); green (of grass, plants, mountains etc.)
  2. green grass
  3. crops that have not yet ripened
  4. black (of hair, cloth, silk thread etc.)
  5. green
  6. lime green

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

青：東方色也。木生火，从生、丹。丹青之信言象然。凡青之屬皆从青。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 綠色。 例：青草、青山綠水
  2. 藍色。 例：青天白日
  3. 黑色。 例：青絲
  4. 綠色的草木、山脈。 例：踏青
  5. 年輕。 例：青年

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

How 青 was written 字形演變

  1. 青 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 青 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 青 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 青 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 青 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: 青