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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

頭

tóu
head (Classifier: 個／个 m c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 頁
  • 16 strokes

Etymology graph

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

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *doː): phonetic 豆 (OC *doːs) + semantic 頁 (“head”).

Replaced earlier 首 (MC syuwX, “head”) due to homophony with 手 (ɕɨuX, “hand”) (Sagart, 1999).

Several etymologies have been proposed:

* From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tV-pu (“head”) or its allofam *du (“head”); compare Tibetan དབུ (dbu, “head”), Burmese ဦး (u:, “head”), Nuosu ꀑ (o, “head”), Proto-Loloish *ʔ-du² (“head”) (Benedict, 1972; Schuessler, 2007; STEDT; Starostin).

* Contraction of 髑髏 (OC *doːɡ roː, “skull”) (Wu, 2006).

* From Proto-Mon-Khmer *duul() (“to carry on one's head”), whence Khmer ទូល (tul); this is phonologically plausible since final consonants are often lost after a long vowel in loanwords (Schuessler, 2007).

* A variant of 豆 (OC *doːs, “a kind of vessel”), as skulls could have been used as drinking recipients; compare French tête (“head”) from Latin testa (“pot; jug”) and German Kopf (“head”) from Middle High German kopf (“drinking vessel”) (Maréchal, 1994; Sagart, 1999). However, Schuessler (2007) notes that 豆 (*doːs) seems like a tone C (去聲) derivation from 頭 (*doː), which may have originally meant “skull”.

* Baxter and Sagart (2014) reconstructs the Old Chinese with a *m- prefix for human body parts, deriving it from 兜 (*tˤo, “helmet; hood”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese豆 “pod-bearing plant or its seeds; bean; pea (Classifier: 顆／颗 m; 粒 m)”
  • meaningChinese頁 “sheet (of paper)”
    • componentChinese首 “head”
    • componentChinese卩 “kneeling person”

Meanings

character
  1. head (Classifier: 個／个 m c)
  2. hair; hairstyle
  3. beginning or end
  4. top; tip; end
  5. chief; boss; leader (person that leads or directs)
  6. remnant; end

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

頭：首也。从頁豆聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 詞綴。語法上用於詞尾的字。 例：舌頭、念頭

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

How 頭 was written 字形演變

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