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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

頂

dǐng
top of the head; crown
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 頁
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *teːŋʔ): phonetic 丁 (OC *rteːŋ, *teːŋ) + semantic 頁 (“head”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tVŋ (“upper part”) (STEDT). The sense “damn” is a clipping of 頂你個肺／顶你个肺 (ding² nei⁵ go³ fai³).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*tVŋ “top”
  • soundChinese丁 “the fourth of the ten heavenly stems”
  • meaningChinese頁 “sheet (of paper)”
    • componentChinese首 “head”
    • componentChinese卩 “kneeling person”

Meanings

character
  1. top of the head; crown
  2. top; peak
  3. to carry on the head
  4. to prop up; to support (from below)
  5. to substitute; to replace
  6. to retort; to talk back

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

頂：顚也。从頁丁聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 頭的最上部。 例：頭頂、摩頂放踵
  2. 物體最高、最上面的部分。 例：山頂、屋頂、塔頂
  3. 以頭承戴。 例：頂天立地
  4. 抵住、支撐。 例：風勢強勁時，最好拿重的東西把門窗頂住。
  5. 以言語相抵。 例：頂嘴、頂撞
  6. 冒著、迎面對著。 例：她頂著雨匆匆離去。

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

How 頂 was written 字形演變

  1. 頂 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 頂 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 頂 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: 頂