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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

飲

yǐn
to drink
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 食
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
  • sound component
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Origin

In the oracle bone script, it was an ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 酉 (“bottle (of alcoholic beverages)”) + 人 (“person”) + 口 (“mouth (occasionally with the tongue protruding)”) – a person bending over a bottle to drink the alcoholic beverage. The droplets represented drops of the drink or saliva.

In the bronze script, the mouth separated from the body and corrupted into 今 (OC *krɯm), while the rest of the body became 欠 (OC *kʰoms). These two components also acted as phonetic components. These changes were inherited in the seal script, leading Shuowen to interpret this character (㱃) as a phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *qrɯmʔ, *qrɯms): phonetic 酓 (OC *qʰɯːm, *qlamʔ, *qlɯːms) + semantic 欠 (“yawn”).

In the clerical script, 酓 has been modified to 食 (“to eat”), which is inherited in the current form.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ʔəm (“to eat; to drink”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*ʔəm “to eat; to drink”
  • ideaChinese酉 “an alcoholic drink vessel”
  • soundChinese酓 “bitter”
  • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
  • meaningChinese欠 “to lack; to be deficient”
  • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Meanings

character
  1. to drink
  2. to attend a banquet
  3. to swallow (tears); to nurse (grievance); to keep in the heart
  4. beverage; drink
  5. diet; food
  6. rice water

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 以水或流質的東西給人或動物喝。 例：飲馬

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

How 飲 was written 字形演變

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