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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

靠

/kʰɑʊ̯⁵¹/
to lean on; to recline
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 非
  • 15 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *kʰuːɡs): phonetic 告 (OC *kuːɡs, *kuːɡ) + semantic 非.

Compare perhaps Burmese ခု (hku., “to prop up, be filling”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese告 “to report to”
    • ideaChinese壴 “drum”
    • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • meaningChinese非 “not be; is not; not”

Related: Burmese ခု

Words built on it: 可靠, 依靠, 靠近

Meanings

character
  1. to lean on; to recline
  2. to depend on; to rely on
  3. to trust; to have confidence in
  4. to come near to; to approach
  5. to keep to (a certain side)
  6. approximately

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

靠：相違也。从非告聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 倚傍。 例：靠牆、倚靠、靠著大樹　◎
  2. 挨近、貼近。 例：靠近、靠攏
  3. 仰賴、依憑。 例：靠實力、靠天吃飯、無依無靠
  4. 信賴、信任。 例：可靠、靠不住
  5. 車、船的停駐、停泊。 例：停靠、靠岸、靠站
  6. 傳統戲劇中武將所穿的鎧甲。 例：靠子、女靠、軟靠　◎

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

How 靠 was written 字形演變

  1. 靠 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 靠 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: 靠