春

Meanings

Etymology

phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, *tʰun): semantic 艸 (“grass”) + phonetic 屯 (*dˤun;*trun;*dun, “swollen sprout”) + semantic 日 (“sun”). The component 屯 originally depicts a swollen sprout or bud beginning to emerge, and may also contribute semantically here. Some oracle-bone and bronze forms contain only two components, either 艸/屮 (chè) with 屯 (tún), or 日 (rì) with 屯 (tún). It may be related to 芚 (OC *dˤun) (“grass or trees sprouting”), 蠢 (OC *tʰunʔ) (“to stir from within; to writhe; to sprout”) and 沌 (OC *dˤun/*dˤunʔ) (“chaotic; undifferentiated”), expressing the idea of a thick, accumulated and undifferentiated mass beginning to stir and push outward. The form 萅 preserves the older arrangement with 艸, while in the regular-script form 春, 艸 and 屯 (tún) merged into 𡗗. Schuessler (2007) relates it to 芚 (OC *duːn, “(of plants) to begin to grow”); he also compares it Khmer ដុះ (doh, “to grow; to germinate; to sprout”), as well as 穿 (OC *kʰljon, *kʰljons, “to bore through”) (ibid.). Sagart (2023b) relates it to a vulgar (i.e. ignoble and popular) word which means "egg", which lacked a character, whose modern reflexes are Meixian Hakka 春 (cun¹, “egg, roe”), Sixian Hakka 春 (chhûn), and Cantonese 春 (ceon¹, “egg, roe; testicle”) (IPA: /t͡ʃʰɵn⁵⁵/); and for which he further reconstructs Old Chinese *tʰu[n] ~ *tʰu[r]. He further relates OC *tʰu[n] ~ *tʰu[r] to Bodo (India) dəy, Mizo tui, Proto-Karen *ʔdejᴮ, from tentative Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tʰur, (STEDT, however, reconstructs *d(w)əy (“egg, testicle”)) and notes a connection between "eggs" and Chinese new year season, as birds generally nest and lay eggs in the warmer months in the north https://www.skedaddlewildlife.com/location/durham-region/blog/when-do-birds-lay-eggs/.

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Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

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Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Related words