芋
Meanings
CC-CEDICT
- 1.taro
- 2.Colocasia antiquorum
- 3.Colocasia esculenta
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Wiktionary
- 1.taro
- 2.lush; luxuriant
- 3.large; great
- 4.to have
- 5.used in 芋尹 (yǔyǐn)
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Etymology
Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɢʷa, *ɢʷas): semantic 艸 (“grass; plant”) + phonetic 于 (OC *ɢʷa) – taro. Unclear. Shuowen suggests that the word arises from the startling size of the taro, leading Kai Xu to connect it to 吁 (OC *qʰʷa), which is the sound that one makes when one is startled. However, this seems to be folk etymology. Compare Proto-Hmong-Mien *wouH (“taro”), Burmese ဝ (wa., “elephant foot yam”), Tibetan གྲོ་མ (gro ma, “Argentina anserina (syn. Potentilla anserina), a plant with small edible tubers”). There are various theories on how all these words are related: * Schuessler (2007) considers it to be an areal word, comparing it to the Hmong-Mien and Burmese words. Schuessler (2015) does not consider the Tibetan word to be cognate. * Blench (2012) suggests that the Chinese word is borrowed from Proto-Hmong-Mien and that the Burmese word may be a late loan from Old Chinese. * STEDT reconstructs Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g/s-rwa (“taro; yam; tuber”), whence the Tibetan word. This etymon is regarded as allofamically related this word and 薯 (OC *djas). * Gong Hwang-cherng (2002) and Baxter and Sagart (2017) also suggest that this word is related to the Tibetan word.
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Stroke order
Components
Components from cjk-decomp · MIT
More examples & usage (AI)
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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