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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

體

tǐ
body
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • radical 骨
  • 23 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 *r̥ʰiːʔ): semantic 骨 (“bone”) + phonetic 豊 (OC *riːʔ).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sri (“to exist”) (Benedict, 1976); cognate with Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s-ri(t), whence Tibetan སྲིད་པ (srid pa) and Burmese ရှိ (hri., “to be, to exist”).

Schuessler (2007) derives Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sreŋ (“live, alive, green, raw”) from this root, yet points out that 生 (OC *sʰleːŋ, *sreŋs)'s initial *sr- cluster was retained instead of becoming voiceless /r̥/ as in 體 (OC *r̥ʰiːʔ), possibly owing to re-analysis of *s- as a causative prefix.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*sri “to exist”
  • meaningChinese骨 “bone”
    • soundChinese冎 “bone”
    • meaningChinese肉 “meat; flesh”
  • soundChinese豊 “ceremony”

Related: Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s-ri(t), Tibetan སྲིད་པ, Burmese ရှိ, Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sreŋ

Words built on it: 身體

Meanings

character
  1. body
  2. part of the body
  3. state of a substance
  4. whole entity
  5. form; structure; shape
  6. style; form; genre; structure

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

體：緫十二屬也。从骨豊聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 人或其他動物的全身。 例：身體、肉體、人體
  2. 身體的各部分。 例：肢體、上體、五體投地
  3. 物體的本質、形態。 例：固體、液體、立體
  4. 設身處地，為人著想。 例：體諒、體恤
  5. 親身的。 例：體驗、體會、體認
  6. 形式、規模。 例：文體、字體、體例

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

How 體 was written 字形演變

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