王

Meanings

Etymology

Pictogram (象形) of a ritual axe made perhaps of jade, symbols of the king's power. A ceremonial axe was kept near the throne, and was used for performing rituals in ancient China. The traditional interpretation (most likely a folk etymology given the original appearance of the character) is that the character metaphorically indicates the king or emperor according to the ancient Chinese thought: three horizontal strokes represent Heaven, Man and Earth, and the vertical stroke is the king or emperor, the one who connects them together. However, compare 天 (tiān) (a man with a horizontal stroke above his head to indicate the sky). Unrelated to 玉 (yù, “a string with three pieces of jade”) and 主 (“master”); partly related to 士 (a war axe and, perhaps, sometimes a variant of 王), to 戉 (an axe drawn vertically), to the inner component of 匡 (kuāng, “square‑shaped bamboo basket”), and to the right component of 往 (< 𢓸). Uncertain. There are many proposed etymologies: * Sagart and Baxter (2009) compare it to Tibetan གོང་མ (gong ma, “superior one”). * Schuessler (2007) compares it to Tibetan དབང (dbang, “strength, power”) and Burmese အန် (an, “strength, power”), which derive from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *d-baŋ (“strength, power”). However, reconstructing the Old Chinese as *waŋ, he notes the mismatch between Old Chinese *w- vs. Tibetan *b- (unless *dw- can become db-; for possible *b- ~ * w- variation, see 花). He also compares it to Proto-Northern Naga *waŋ (“chief”). * Schuessler (2007) alternatively proposes a connection to Old Khmer vāṅ, vaṅ (modern Khmer វាំង (veăng), “royal palace”), which he considers to be cognate with Khmer ហ្លួង (hluŏng, “king”). This is perhaps supported by a bronze inscription where 王 refers to a place, not the Zhou king (Shaughnessy, 1991). The semantic shift from "palace" to "king" parallels Egyptian pr-ꜥꜣ (“pharaoh”, literally “palace”), from pr (“house”) + ꜥꜣ (“great, big”). The connection to the Old Khmer word would thus relate it to Proto-Mon-Khmer *waŋ ~ *waaŋ (“enclosure; to go round”), which is part of a larger Austroasiatic word family, including 營 (OC *ɢʷeŋ) and 環 (OC *ɡʷraːn). Bodman (1980) connects 王 with 皇 (OC *ɡʷaːŋ, “sovereign”), which Schuessler (2007) connects to this word family. * Speculations exist about its connection to 尪 (OC *qʷaːŋ, “lame, crippled”) and 狂 (OC *ɡʷaŋ, “mad”), based on theories about the connection between ancient Chinese kingship and shamanism (Keightley, 1995).

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Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

Example sentences

• 他是个大胃王。

  He is a big eater.

• 國王濫用權力。

  The king abused his power.

• 狮子是丛林之王。

  The lion is the king of the jungle.

• 他裝得像國王一樣。

  He acts as if he were a king.

• 國王摧毀了他的敵人。

  The king crushed his enemies.

• 騎士宣誓效忠於國王。

  The knight swore an oath of allegiance to the king.

Sentences from Tatoeba · CC-BY 2.0 FR

More examples & usage (AI)

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Related words