<p>It's not online, but it's worth checking out, as it actually does cover <em>word etymologies</em>:</p>

<p><a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0824829751">ABC Etymological Dictionary</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-18T06:28:00.477Z
I'd say this is the only real answer, as it focuses on pronunciation rather than orthography. I have this book and certainly recommend it, but keep in mind that it's an etymological dictionary of Old Chinese. It does attempt to provide some explanation for contemporary words, but that isn't its focus.
HAL
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-18T16:17:59.497Z
I found it available on http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780824861339?auth=0 but it appeared to paywalled, and my institution was not there. Perhaps this will be helpful to others?
March Ho
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2016-09-07T21:44:54.070Z
I have this book.  In addition to treatments of the individual spoken characters (and a few words), it also has a lengthy exposition on the various patterns behind the evolution of the *sound* of Old Chinese and how they're reflected in Middle Chinese (c. Tang Dynasty) and modern Chinese dialects.
Brian Tung
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2012-06-20T13:43:40.183Z
Oh, this looks like it might be something very interesting!  I'll definitely try to obtain a copy some way to check if it's what I'm looking for.
Szabolcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-06-20T11:26:45.323Z
2012-06-20T11:26:45.323Z
Stumpy Joe Pete
<p>In terms of answering your first question about the websites. I usually use <a href="http://zdic.net" rel="nofollow">ZDIC.net</a> or <a href="http://baike.baidu.com" rel="nofollow">Baidu's Baike</a>. However, Baidu Baike doesn't always give etymology. If those two fail, why not try searching for it using Baidu/Google and adding 字根 (character root), 本意 (original meaning) or 名源 (origin of names/etymology) to your search.</p>

<p>Although it might be hard to get word etymology, like Xah Lee, that Classical Chinese were mostly one-character words. For instance, 牦牛 can said with just 牦。Thus, it might be more productive to go after character etymologies, rather than words.</p>

<p>Trying to answer your 牦牛 question. My Chinese is not good enough to understand all the dictionary speak, but looking at the traditional character version of <a href="http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm" rel="nofollow">氂 on zdic.net</a> should be of some guidance.</p>

<p>In linking that, there might be some hints as to where it originated. Another version of the traditional character is also 犛, which refers to a black ox/yak. See the radical difference underneath？毛 vs 牛。 In fact, the traditional character, according the above <a href="http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm" rel="nofollow">zdic link</a> in the 说文解字 section, says that the tail of the 犛牛 was called 氂. However, it further states that 㲠, which is an abbreviated version of 氂，which seems have fallen out of use, means <a href="http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi2/ZdicE3ZdicB2ZdicA0.htm" rel="nofollow">"horse tail, long hair; thick hair"</a>. The old banners/flags had yak's tails on them. This was called 旄. In fact another meaning for 旄 is also a yak's tail. Thus, 旄 and 氂 became intertwined. 犛牛 became 旄牛.</p>

<p>Now here my Chinese gets a bit a dodgy. In Classical Chinese too:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>从犛省。从毛。莫交切。二部。按周禮樂師音義。氂舊音毛。但許不言毛亦聲。而左傳晏氂，外傳作晏萊。後漢書魏郡輿人歌。岑熙狗吠不驚。足下生氂。與災時茲三字韵。則是犛省亦聲。在弟一部也。</p>
</blockquote>

<p>As far as I can gather, what happened was that, people started calling 犛牛， 氂牛，but they wanted to stop this, due to its similar sound to 毛，but this came too late.</p>

<p>If anyone with better understanding of Classical Chinese, can also verify the 说文解字 entry on the <a href="http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm" rel="nofollow">ZDIC link</a>. Heck, I had fun researching this. Got to love the depth of Chinese!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-01-12T08:45:13.303Z
2012-01-12T11:07:18.433Z
2012-01-12T11:07:18.433Z
Confused Laowai
<p><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wiktionary</a> has etymologies for many of their entries. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%9C%9C#Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">蜜</a>: &quot;Possibly from Proto-Tocharian *ḿətə, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (“mead”). Compare Tocharian B mit (“honey”).&quot;</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%8E%BB%E7%92%83" rel="nofollow noreferrer">玻璃</a>: &quot;Borrowed from Pali phalika (“crystal”), from Sanskrit स्फटिक (sphaṭika). Cognate with Thai ผลึก (pà-lʉ̀k, “crystal”), Lao ຜະລຶກ (pha lưk), ຜະລິກະ (pha li ka), Khmer ផលិក (phɑlɨk). The definition of &quot;gay person&quot; is derived from BL.&quot;</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%B3%B3%E5%87%B0#Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">鳳凰</a>: &quot;Miyake (2015) reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation *N-prəm-s ɢʷˁɑŋ and proposed, though with uncertainty, that the fabulous bird's name is the affixed form of 風皇 (“wind sovereign”).&quot;</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-27T16:09:24.777Z
2020-09-27T16:09:24.777Z
mic
<p>Chinese language doesn't work the way you might thought.</p>

<p>Basically, there's no such thing as etymology of words, only characters, because each char is a word. Only in last century, vernacular Chinese popularized in using 2 or more chars to denote a word. The 2-char words of vernacular chinese naturally came from the single char words and usage patterns. So, if you want to learn the history of words, basically you learn the classical chinese.</p>

<p>You might check out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Chinese_language" rel="nofollow">History of the Chinese language</a>, in particular <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese" rel="nofollow">Classical Chinese</a>.</p>

<p>There are lots of books on history of idioms though (e.g. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu" rel="nofollow">Chengyu</a>), but that's a bit different from what you mean by word.</p>

<p>As an analogy, let's say one might be wondering if there's a book on history of english phrases such as "fried chicken", "icy cold", "flaming hot", "black desk", "round table"...</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-27T03:32:52.033Z
@Szabolcs: Chinese is more strongly intertwined with its writing system than many languages and thanks to the writing system it has a longer history that can be studied than many languages. But you are right than the writing system is just the map whereas the spoken language is the territory and "the map is not the territory". Etymology is possible with all languages but that doesn't mean every word has a knowable etymology. To investigate further back in time we construct proto languages via analyses of regular sound change among related languages, such as Burmese and Tibetan.
hippietrail
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-07T16:57:02.150Z
@XahLee We know quite a lot about [the origin of the word “cow”](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cow#Etymology_1), even from the times before writing was used: *From Middle English cou, cu, from Old English cū ‎(“cow”), from Proto-Germanic *kūz ‎(“cow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws ‎(“cow”). Cognate with Sanskrit गो ‎(go), Ancient Greek βοῦς ‎(boûs), Persian گاو ‎(gāv)), Proto-Slavic *govędo (Serbo-Croatian govedo), Scots coo ‎(“cow”)* [and so on...] The OP asks for the same kind of information about Chinese.
米好 '-'
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2016-12-07T17:00:48.563Z
@XahLee As for 氂牛, I don't know where you live, but for example in rural Sichuan it's an everyday word. If you live in a place where yaks aren't common, it's not so strange you might not know it, regardless of what your native language is.
米好 '-'
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-22T20:55:02.680Z
For this question, I am interested in the history of spoken words, not the writing system.  Why a certain thing is called what it's called, and not why a certain logogram is drawn the way it's drawn.  Most of the time when I ask questions like this I hit a wall where people apparently insist of implicitly interpreting "Chinese" as "Chinese written using Chinese characters", so here I excplitily clarified this.  Chinese was spoken even before Chinese characters existed, right?
Szabolcs
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2011-12-22T20:56:33.583Z
Take the concrete example I mentioned: how could I find out if 牦牛 has anything to do with 毛牛?  Checking what those things are called in some other Chinese languages (especially those spoken at places where 牦牛 actually live and are domesticated) would be interesting, but usually the most I can get is the pronunciations assigned to written character in Mandarin and *maybe* Cantonese, but that's all.
Szabolcs
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2011-12-26T16:42:01.813Z
how's this different from a analogous question in English? Say, why is cow pronounced "kou", what's the origin of people calling cows cow before writing arrived? I guess the question could be treated seriously but the answer gets too complex back to the origin of language. I am a native chinese but don't really know what 牦牛 is... (went thru google translate, it's yak, then i had to lookup wikipedia on that beast) ... so anyway i guess your question is not a practical one, and i don't know the answer.
Xah Lee
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2011-12-28T15:08:28.280Z
Yes, you are right that this question isn't different from an analogous question for English, and it is s complex one, yet there are many etymological dictionaries for English giving this kind of information.  (I'd point you to the [OED](http://www.oed.com/), but unfortunately it's not freely accessible unless you happen to be at a university that is subscribed).  Languages can be and are sometimes heavily influenced by the writing system, but we must not forget that the writing system is not the same as the language, and the language was there before the writing.
Szabolcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-22T18:47:31.707Z
2012-01-12T11:49:16.853Z
2012-01-12T11:49:16.853Z
Xah Lee
<p>If we take away the characters, which means we are going a long way back, prior to written records, which in terms of world history is a long time ago because Chinese writing is considerably early history (think 甲骨文). We are left with the spoken language.</p>

<p>In terms of a spoken language Chinese is different because it doesn't have an alphabet per se, so unlinke English where you have the opportunity to have an endless number of words Chinese uses a finite number of words. For English it could be possible to trace a word like Trampoline back through its roots where you get to a certain point where it first began arising. But with Chinese if you take a word like máo​ you are in trouble because it didn't stem from any other word or in any other culture or from any other root of a word or from any part of another word, máo​ is just máo​.</p>

<hr>

<p>To go back to your question: </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Generally, how well do character etyomologies reflect the true etymologies of words?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Looking at the example provided "an ox 牜牛 that requires couxing 攵攴 from a branch 未" at some point someone or some group decided to choose that character to apply to that "word" so understand that the character has a meaning which is what you provided above, but the word already had a meaning and a context, so you can't use the meaning of the character as a basis for the etymology or origin of the usage of the word. </p>

<p>This doesn't confirm or contradict that 牦牛 comes from 毛牛 as you have insinuated. The etymology of the character is useless in telling that. If you strip away the characters a 牦牛 is still a 牦牛 and will have been called such for thousands of years even if some monk decides to use a more complicated character or decides a new character is required because there may have been some other context.</p>

<hr>

<p>Was máo​ chosen as the spoken word for 氂 because it was hairy (毛 máo​)? You can't use the characters to answer that because both máo​ (氂) and máo​ (毛) existed prior to either character. You need to go back to a time when words first started arising and the language was born and that information is lost to the ages.</p>

<hr>

<p>If you want to go into the above further I'm afraid that's off topic as per the FAQ for the site as the scope is too large and you would require a book to cover all of the necessary information. I hope the above is sufficient in answering why such a tool does not exist.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-27T03:28:06.867Z
This answer is riddled with misunderstandings of what etymology is and can do for Chinese and other languages as well as confounding languages and writing systems. In the end it's just a bunch of intuitions. But the most interesting thing about studying languages is all the amazing ways in which they do not behave like our intuitions think they do.
hippietrail
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2014-01-28T01:11:49.870Z
@hippietrail - Happy to be proven wrong with one solid counter example?
going
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2014-01-28T04:18:47.070Z
Well I really wish I had access to the *ABC Etymological Dictionary* that Stumpy Joe Pete mentioned. It can be searched on Google Books but doesn't respond to hanzi searches. I'll see what I can find ...
hippietrail
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-18T16:20:11.573Z
OT, but I don't think "insinuated" is the right word to use in "This doesn't confirm or contradict that 牦牛 comes from 毛牛 as you have insinuated. " "Claimed" or "mentioned" would make more sense.
March Ho
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2012-01-12T03:17:01.160Z
2012-01-12T03:17:01.160Z
going
<p>The ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese is searchable online here:</p>

<p><a href="http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_index.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_index.php</a></p>

<p>Go to 'EDOC: Linear Output', select 'All' on the right-hand side (under 'ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese'), type in your characters, and click 'Display Phonetics'.  For more complicated searches, go to 'EDOC: Search'.</p>

<p>Also, to give a simple example to help clarify what the OP is referring to as "character etymologies" vs. "word etymologies", the ABC dictionary gives the following for 蜜 (mì):</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>‘Honey’ [Chuci]. || [T] MTang mir &lt; mir, ONW miit — [D] PMin *mit || [E]
  Thought to be borrowed from IE-Tocharian B mit ‘honey’ &lt; PTokharian *mjət
  (Behr Oriens 1999 / 2000: 36).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The above is a word etymology.  It is a loanword, of Indo-European origin, and is in fact related to English "mead", Lithuanian "medus", Greek "μέθη", Russian "мёд", and Farsi "می", for example.</p>

<p>A character etymology would decompose this character into 虫 (insect radical) and 宓 (phonetic), which is in turn decomposed into 宀 (roof radical) and 必 (phonetic). Both 虫 and 宀 can be traced back to the oracle bone script, while 必 can be traced back to the bronzeware script. (Source: <a href="http://hanziyuan.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">hanziyuan.net</a>)</p>

<p>The character and word etymologies are quite distinct - while all of the components of the character are of Chinese origin, the word itself is Indo-European.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-16T12:27:03.250Z
Very interesting and useful site. While there are many good answers already, I think this answers my questions the most directly. Accepted.
Szabolcs
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2017-02-10T22:12:49.910Z
*Great* resource.  I have the printed dictionary, but a searchable on-line resource is great.
Brian Tung
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2019-02-01T11:45:37.827Z
This Indo-European theory should also connect the word 蜜 to English *mead* (wine made from honey).
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-02-01T11:58:48.210Z
Also, I would question `The origin of 必 is unclear`. It is very clear, but probably not in the realm of linguists, and it's for another question.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-02-03T16:28:04.787Z
Thanks, updated.  I meant that the original meaning of 必 is disputed, but I think you're right that it's not relevant for this question.  Out of interest, what did you mean by saying it is "not in the realm of linguists"?
eaglebrain
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2019-02-03T16:53:32.683Z
Well, linguists derive conclusions and make reconstructions based on actual *words* that are spoken across multiple languages. Since 必 is a rebus, and originally represented a word that is scarcely used today, linguists have almost no data to determine what 必 originally meant. One needs to be highly trained in not only linguistics, but also palaeography and Chinese literature to be able to determine what a character originally meant. FYI: 必 existed in oracle bone, and the word it represented is now written as 柲.
dROOOze
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2019-02-03T16:59:44.213Z
The structure of 必 is clear, as seen at http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=238. The character is drawn the same way as 戈, which represents a dagger-axe weapon, but without the blade portion of the weapon; see http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=127. 必 very clearly represented a weapon shaft, and the actual word is now written as 柲. This kind of evidence is not really something that linguists are trained to deal with.
dROOOze
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2019-02-03T18:33:46.400Z
I think that's quite a narrow view of linguistics.  I'm not a historical linguist myself, but I do have colleagues who study both classical Chinese literature and modern dialects, and who call themselves linguists.  I'm not in a position to judge the correct etymology of 必, but there are also claims that it is 弋 plus 八. As we've already agreed, this is not relevant to the OP.
eaglebrain
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-03T16:59:28.870Z
That's a very interesting resource, but it's not helping me with my specific problem—and perhaps not with the class of problems this one falls in; I'm not sure. I'm interested in understanding the origin of 客气 to mean "polite." Literally, it means something like "air guest." How did that come to mean "polite"?
Calion
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2021-01-05T15:02:45.853Z
I'm afraid I don't know a good etymological dictionary for modern Mandarin.  It's easy to find folk etymologies, but much harder to find etymologies backed up by attested uses.  For your particular question, see: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/26954/15320
eaglebrain
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2016-09-16T12:05:02.203Z
2019-02-04T09:13:05.943Z
2019-02-04T09:13:05.943Z
eaglebrain
<p><strong>tl;dr</strong> Are you aware of any dictionaries that explain word etymologies (not merely character etymologies)?  Some links/references would be useful.</p>

<hr>

<p>This is actually a collection of related questions, but I thought it would be good to keep them together.</p>

<p>Are there any online <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology" rel="noreferrer">etymological</a> dictionaries of Chinese?  All such dictionaries I can find deal with character etymologies, which is not at all the same thing as the etymologies of the real spoken language (which can do just fine without a writing system at all, I'm sure that not more than a 100 years ago literacy rate in China was far from great).</p>

<p>Generally, how well do <em>character</em> etyomologies reflect the true etyomologies of <em>words</em>?</p>

<p>Let me give a motivating example, which made me curious about it.  <em>Yak</em> in Mandarin is 牦牛 / 氂牛 / máo​niú, i.e. when spoken sounds just like "hairy cow" 毛牛, a very fitting description.  If it weren't for the characters, one would be tempted to suspect this is not an accident.  Yet if we look up the <em>character</em> (not word!) online, we only get <a href="http://internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E7%8A%9B&amp;submitButton1=Etymology" rel="noreferrer">"signific cluster, an ox 牜牛 that requires couxing 攵攴 from a branch 未"</a>, which suggests otherwise.</p>

<hr>

<p>To avoid an all too common misunderstanding, I'd like to point out again that although a writing system can leave a deep mark on the oral language, a language can exist just fine without it.  I am sure that a 100 years ago the literacy rate in China was far below great, yet people could use the language just fine.  So again, when I say Chinese in this question, I mean the spoken Chinese language (take whichever variety you prefer), not the character based writing system (I have the impression that often answers about Chinese consider written Chinese first).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-12T18:58:16.160Z
If you look into historical phonologies, particularly in middle to old chinese, you can see which words cluster similarly (such as 見 /kens/ and 看 /kʰaːns/). There are a lot of resources for this. Chinese is one of the best documented languages in history because of rime tables, and the historical phonologies and sounds of characters can be researched easily.

This is your best resource. Some people don't look at the sound origins, and focus only on written history, but there's many resources for historical phonology. It also helps distinguish words that sound the same from those that *are*.
sqrtbottle
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2015-05-12T18:59:07.727Z
Tell me if you want a full written answer, and I'll write one out (rather than squish into comments section)
sqrtbottle
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2015-05-12T20:07:12.390Z
@Sqrtbottle Yes, that would be nice!
Szabolcs
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-12-25T18:40:57.577Z
Does this answer your question? [What etymology dictionaries are available?](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/511/what-etymology-dictionaries-are-available)
Wes
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2021-12-25T19:17:55.017Z
@venue No, it does not, because the majority of Chinese dictionaries that claim to have "etymology" only discuss character shapes. This question is specifically about sounds.
Szabolcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-22T22:11:28.770Z
I think you pose a very bright and interesting question! I think in this particular case, to the people that were living around yaks, they knew them simply as 毛牛, to separate them from regular cattle. To other people, who had never seen a yak, 毛牛 was simple a longhaired version of cattle. Like longhorn cattle is different from plain old cattle. And then someone who knew about both yaks and longhaired cattle came along and had to differentiate the two, as he was supposed to standardize the characters for both of these.
Lars Andren
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2012-01-14T12:42:55.617Z
It is an interesting question. However, there may not be a real answer since the Chinese spoken language is difficult to trace back through time owing to the complete lack of a phonetic transcription method. This makes it extremely difficult to determine how any given word or character was pronounced in a given region at a given time (and of course the further back you go the more difficult it becomes). This also makes it difficult to research how sinitic languages interacted with other language groups in the distant past.
Bjorn
<etymology>
Are there any online etymological dictionaries of Mandarin (not for characters but for spoken words)
# Are there any online etymological dictionaries of Mandarin (not for characters but for spoken words)

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-12-22)

**tl;dr** Are you aware of any dictionaries that explain word etymologies (not merely character etymologies)? Some links/references would be useful.

---

This is actually a collection of related questions, but I thought it would be good to keep them together.

Are there any online [etymological](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology) dictionaries of Chinese? All such dictionaries I can find deal with character etymologies, which is not at all the same thing as the etymologies of the real spoken language (which can do just fine without a writing system at all, I'm sure that not more than a 100 years ago literacy rate in China was far from great).

Generally, how well do *character* etyomologies reflect the true etyomologies of *words*?

Let me give a motivating example, which made me curious about it. *Yak* in Mandarin is 牦牛 / 氂牛 / máo​niú, i.e. when spoken sounds just like "hairy cow" 毛牛, a very fitting description. If it weren't for the characters, one would be tempted to suspect this is not an accident. Yet if we look up the *character* (not word!) online, we only get ["signific cluster, an ox 牜牛 that requires couxing 攵攴 from a branch 未"](http://internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E7%8A%9B&submitButton1=Etymology), which suggests otherwise.

---

To avoid an all too common misunderstanding, I'd like to point out again that although a writing system can leave a deep mark on the oral language, a language can exist just fine without it. I am sure that a 100 years ago the literacy rate in China was far below great, yet people could use the language just fine. So again, when I say Chinese in this question, I mean the spoken Chinese language (take whichever variety you prefer), not the character based writing system (I have the impression that often answers about Chinese consider written Chinese first).

**Tags:** etymology

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: I think you pose a very bright and interesting question! I think in this particular case, to the people that were living around yaks, they knew them simply as 毛牛, to separate them from regular cattle. To other people, who had never seen a yak, 毛牛 was simple a longhaired version of cattle. Like longhorn cattle is different from plain old cattle. And then someone who knew about both yaks and longhaired cattle came along and had to differentiate the two, as he was supposed to standardize the characters for both of these.  
> **username_4**: It is an interesting question. However, there may not be a real answer since the Chinese spoken language is difficult to trace back through time owing to the complete lack of a phonetic transcription method. This makes it extremely difficult to determine how any given word or character was pronounced in a given region at a given time (and of course the further back you go the more difficult it becomes). This also makes it difficult to research how sinitic languages interacted with other language groups in the distant past.  
> **username_1**: If you look into historical phonologies, particularly in middle to old chinese, you can see which words cluster similarly (such as 見 /kens/ and 看 /kʰaːns/). There are a lot of resources for this. Chinese is one of the best documented languages in history because of rime tables, and the historical phonologies and sounds of characters can be researched easily.  This is your best resource. Some people don't look at the sound origins, and focus only on written history, but there's many resources for historical phonology. It also helps distinguish words that sound the same from those that *are*.  
> **username_1**: Tell me if you want a full written answer, and I'll write one out (rather than squish into comments section)  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Yes, that would be nice!  
> **username_2**: Does this answer your question? [What etymology dictionaries are available?](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/511/what-etymology-dictionaries-are-available)  
> **username_0**: @venue No, it does not, because the majority of Chinese dictionaries that claim to have "etymology" only discuss character shapes. This question is specifically about sounds.  

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## 6 answers

### Answer by username_15 on 2016-09-16. Score: 10 | Accepted answer

The ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese is searchable online here:

<http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_index.php>

Go to 'EDOC: Linear Output', select 'All' on the right-hand side (under 'ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese'), type in your characters, and click 'Display Phonetics'. For more complicated searches, go to 'EDOC: Search'.

Also, to give a simple example to help clarify what the OP is referring to as "character etymologies" vs. "word etymologies", the ABC dictionary gives the following for 蜜 (mì):

> ‘Honey’ [Chuci]. || [T] MTang mir < mir, ONW miit — [D] PMin \*mit || [E]
> Thought to be borrowed from IE-Tocharian B mit ‘honey’ < PTokharian \*mjət
> (Behr Oriens 1999 / 2000: 36).

The above is a word etymology. It is a loanword, of Indo-European origin, and is in fact related to English "mead", Lithuanian "medus", Greek "μέθη", Russian "мёд", and Farsi "می", for example.

A character etymology would decompose this character into 虫 (insect radical) and 宓 (phonetic), which is in turn decomposed into 宀 (roof radical) and 必 (phonetic). Both 虫 and 宀 can be traced back to the oracle bone script, while 必 can be traced back to the bronzeware script. (Source: [hanziyuan.net](http://hanziyuan.net/))

The character and word etymologies are quite distinct - while all of the components of the character are of Chinese origin, the word itself is Indo-European.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Very interesting and useful site. While there are many good answers already, I think this answers my questions the most directly. Accepted.  
> **username_8**: *Great* resource.  I have the printed dictionary, but a searchable on-line resource is great.  
> **username_16**: This Indo-European theory should also connect the word 蜜 to English *mead* (wine made from honey).  
> **username_16**: Also, I would question `The origin of 必 is unclear`. It is very clear, but probably not in the realm of linguists, and it's for another question.  
> **username_15**: Thanks, updated.  I meant that the original meaning of 必 is disputed, but I think you're right that it's not relevant for this question.  Out of interest, what did you mean by saying it is "not in the realm of linguists"?  
> **username_16**: Well, linguists derive conclusions and make reconstructions based on actual *words* that are spoken across multiple languages. Since 必 is a rebus, and originally represented a word that is scarcely used today, linguists have almost no data to determine what 必 originally meant. One needs to be highly trained in not only linguistics, but also palaeography and Chinese literature to be able to determine what a character originally meant. FYI: 必 existed in oracle bone, and the word it represented is now written as 柲.  
> **username_16**: The structure of 必 is clear, as seen at http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=238. The character is drawn the same way as 戈, which represents a dagger-axe weapon, but without the blade portion of the weapon; see http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=127. 必 very clearly represented a weapon shaft, and the actual word is now written as 柲. This kind of evidence is not really something that linguists are trained to deal with.  
> **username_15**: I think that's quite a narrow view of linguistics.  I'm not a historical linguist myself, but I do have colleagues who study both classical Chinese literature and modern dialects, and who call themselves linguists.  I'm not in a position to judge the correct etymology of 必, but there are also claims that it is 弋 plus 八. As we've already agreed, this is not relevant to the OP.  
> **username_17**: That's a very interesting resource, but it's not helping me with my specific problem—and perhaps not with the class of problems this one falls in; I'm not sure. I'm interested in understanding the origin of 客气 to mean "polite." Literally, it means something like "air guest." How did that come to mean "polite"?  
> **username_15**: I'm afraid I don't know a good etymological dictionary for modern Mandarin.  It's easy to find folk etymologies, but much harder to find etymologies backed up by attested uses.  For your particular question, see: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/26954/15320  

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### Answer by username_5 on 2012-06-20. Score: 7

It's not online, but it's worth checking out, as it actually does cover *word etymologies*:

[ABC Etymological Dictionary](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0824829751)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Oh, this looks like it might be something very interesting!  I'll definitely try to obtain a copy some way to check if it's what I'm looking for.  
> **username_6**: I'd say this is the only real answer, as it focuses on pronunciation rather than orthography. I have this book and certainly recommend it, but keep in mind that it's an etymological dictionary of Old Chinese. It does attempt to provide some explanation for contemporary words, but that isn't its focus.  
> **username_7**: I found it available on http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780824861339?auth=0 but it appeared to paywalled, and my institution was not there. Perhaps this will be helpful to others?  
> **username_8**: I have this book.  In addition to treatments of the individual spoken characters (and a few words), it also has a lengthy exposition on the various patterns behind the evolution of the *sound* of Old Chinese and how they're reflected in Middle Chinese (c. Tang Dynasty) and modern Chinese dialects.  

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### Answer by username_9 on 2012-01-12. Score: 5

In terms of answering your first question about the websites. I usually use [ZDIC.net](http://zdic.net) or [Baidu's Baike](http://baike.baidu.com). However, Baidu Baike doesn't always give etymology. If those two fail, why not try searching for it using Baidu/Google and adding 字根 (character root), 本意 (original meaning) or 名源 (origin of names/etymology) to your search.

Although it might be hard to get word etymology, like username_11, that Classical Chinese were mostly one-character words. For instance, 牦牛 can said with just 牦。Thus, it might be more productive to go after character etymologies, rather than words.

Trying to answer your 牦牛 question. My Chinese is not good enough to understand all the dictionary speak, but looking at the traditional character version of [氂 on zdic.net](http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm) should be of some guidance.

In linking that, there might be some hints as to where it originated. Another version of the traditional character is also 犛, which refers to a black ox/yak. See the radical difference underneath？毛 vs 牛。 In fact, the traditional character, according the above [zdic link](http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm) in the 说文解字 section, says that the tail of the 犛牛 was called 氂. However, it further states that 㲠, which is an abbreviated version of 氂，which seems have fallen out of use, means ["horse tail, long hair; thick hair"](http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi2/ZdicE3ZdicB2ZdicA0.htm). The old banners/flags had yak's tails on them. This was called 旄. In fact another meaning for 旄 is also a yak's tail. Thus, 旄 and 氂 became intertwined. 犛牛 became 旄牛.

Now here my Chinese gets a bit a dodgy. In Classical Chinese too:

> 从犛省。从毛。莫交切。二部。按周禮樂師音義。氂舊音毛。但許不言毛亦聲。而左傳晏氂，外傳作晏萊。後漢書魏郡輿人歌。岑熙狗吠不驚。足下生氂。與災時茲三字韵。則是犛省亦聲。在弟一部也。

As far as I can gather, what happened was that, people started calling 犛牛， 氂牛，but they wanted to stop this, due to its similar sound to 毛，but this came too late.

If anyone with better understanding of Classical Chinese, can also verify the 说文解字 entry on the [ZDIC link](http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE6ZdicB0Zdic82.htm). Heck, I had fun researching this. Got to love the depth of Chinese!


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### Answer by username_10 on 2020-09-27. Score: 3

[Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page) has etymologies for many of their entries. For example:

* [蜜](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%9C%9C#Chinese): "Possibly from Proto-Tocharian \*ḿətə, from Proto-Indo-European \*médʰu (“mead”). Compare Tocharian B mit (“honey”)."
* [玻璃](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%8E%BB%E7%92%83): "Borrowed from Pali phalika (“crystal”), from Sanskrit स्फटिक (sphaṭika). Cognate with Thai ผลึก (pà-lʉ̀k, “crystal”), Lao ຜະລຶກ (pha lưk), ຜະລິກະ (pha li ka), Khmer ផលិក (phɑlɨk). The definition of "gay person" is derived from BL."
* [鳳凰](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%B3%B3%E5%87%B0#Chinese): "Miyake (2015) reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation \*N-prəm-s ɢʷˁɑŋ and proposed, though with uncertainty, that the fabulous bird's name is the affixed form of 風皇 (“wind sovereign”)."


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### Answer by username_11 on 2011-12-22. Score: 3

Chinese language doesn't work the way you might thought.

Basically, there's no such thing as etymology of words, only characters, because each char is a word. Only in last century, vernacular Chinese popularized in using 2 or more chars to denote a word. The 2-char words of vernacular chinese naturally came from the single char words and usage patterns. So, if you want to learn the history of words, basically you learn the classical chinese.

You might check out [History of the Chinese language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Chinese_language), in particular [Classical Chinese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese).

There are lots of books on history of idioms though (e.g. [Chengyu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu)), but that's a bit different from what you mean by word.

As an analogy, let's say one might be wondering if there's a book on history of english phrases such as "fried chicken", "icy cold", "flaming hot", "black desk", "round table"...

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: For this question, I am interested in the history of spoken words, not the writing system.  Why a certain thing is called what it's called, and not why a certain logogram is drawn the way it's drawn.  Most of the time when I ask questions like this I hit a wall where people apparently insist of implicitly interpreting "Chinese" as "Chinese written using Chinese characters", so here I excplitily clarified this.  Chinese was spoken even before Chinese characters existed, right?  
> **username_0**: Take the concrete example I mentioned: how could I find out if 牦牛 has anything to do with 毛牛?  Checking what those things are called in some other Chinese languages (especially those spoken at places where 牦牛 actually live and are domesticated) would be interesting, but usually the most I can get is the pronunciations assigned to written character in Mandarin and *maybe* Cantonese, but that's all.  
> **username_11**: how's this different from a analogous question in English? Say, why is cow pronounced "kou", what's the origin of people calling cows cow before writing arrived? I guess the question could be treated seriously but the answer gets too complex back to the origin of language. I am a native chinese but don't really know what 牦牛 is... (went thru google translate, it's yak, then i had to lookup wikipedia on that beast) ... so anyway i guess your question is not a practical one, and i don't know the answer.  
> **username_0**: Yes, you are right that this question isn't different from an analogous question for English, and it is s complex one, yet there are many etymological dictionaries for English giving this kind of information.  (I'd point you to the [OED](http://www.oed.com/), but unfortunately it's not freely accessible unless you happen to be at a university that is subscribed).  Languages can be and are sometimes heavily influenced by the writing system, but we must not forget that the writing system is not the same as the language, and the language was there before the writing.  
> **username_12**: @username_0: Chinese is more strongly intertwined with its writing system than many languages and thanks to the writing system it has a longer history that can be studied than many languages. But you are right than the writing system is just the map whereas the spoken language is the territory and "the map is not the territory". Etymology is possible with all languages but that doesn't mean every word has a knowable etymology. To investigate further back in time we construct proto languages via analyses of regular sound change among related languages, such as Burmese and Tibetan.  
> **username_13**: @username_11 We know quite a lot about [the origin of the word “cow”](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cow#Etymology_1), even from the times before writing was used: *From Middle English cou, cu, from Old English cū ‎(“cow”), from Proto-Germanic *kūz ‎(“cow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws ‎(“cow”). Cognate with Sanskrit गो ‎(go), Ancient Greek βοῦς ‎(boûs), Persian گاو ‎(gāv)), Proto-Slavic *govędo (Serbo-Croatian govedo), Scots coo ‎(“cow”)* [and so on...] The OP asks for the same kind of information about Chinese.  
> **username_13**: @username_11 As for 氂牛, I don't know where you live, but for example in rural Sichuan it's an everyday word. If you live in a place where yaks aren't common, it's not so strange you might not know it, regardless of what your native language is.  

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### Answer by username_14 on 2012-01-12. Score: -1

If we take away the characters, which means we are username_14 a long way back, prior to written records, which in terms of world history is a long time ago because Chinese writing is considerably early history (think 甲骨文). We are left with the spoken language.

In terms of a spoken language Chinese is different because it doesn't have an alphabet per se, so unlinke English where you have the opportunity to have an endless number of words Chinese uses a finite number of words. For English it could be possible to trace a word like Trampoline back through its roots where you get to a certain point where it first began arising. But with Chinese if you take a word like máo​ you are in trouble because it didn't stem from any other word or in any other culture or from any other root of a word or from any part of another word, máo​ is just máo​.

---

To go back to your question:

> Generally, how well do character etyomologies reflect the true etymologies of words?

Looking at the example provided "an ox 牜牛 that requires couxing 攵攴 from a branch 未" at some point someone or some group decided to choose that character to apply to that "word" so understand that the character has a meaning which is what you provided above, but the word already had a meaning and a context, so you can't use the meaning of the character as a basis for the etymology or origin of the usage of the word.

This doesn't confirm or contradict that 牦牛 comes from 毛牛 as you have insinuated. The etymology of the character is useless in telling that. If you strip away the characters a 牦牛 is still a 牦牛 and will have been called such for thousands of years even if some monk decides to use a more complicated character or decides a new character is required because there may have been some other context.

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Was máo​ chosen as the spoken word for 氂 because it was hairy (毛 máo​)? You can't use the characters to answer that because both máo​ (氂) and máo​ (毛) existed prior to either character. You need to go back to a time when words first started arising and the language was born and that information is lost to the ages.

---

If you want to go into the above further I'm afraid that's off topic as per the FAQ for the site as the scope is too large and you would require a book to cover all of the necessary information. I hope the above is sufficient in answering why such a tool does not exist.

> **Comments:**
> **username_12**: This answer is riddled with misunderstandings of what etymology is and can do for Chinese and other languages as well as confounding languages and writing systems. In the end it's just a bunch of intuitions. But the most interesting thing about studying languages is all the amazing ways in which they do not behave like our intuitions think they do.  
> **username_14**: @username_12 - Happy to be proven wrong with one solid counter example?  
> **username_12**: Well I really wish I had access to the *ABC Etymological Dictionary* that username_5 Joe username_5 mentioned. It can be searched on Google Books but doesn't respond to hanzi searches. I'll see what I can find ...  
> **username_7**: OT, but I don't think "insinuated" is the right word to use in "This doesn't confirm or contradict that 牦牛 comes from 毛牛 as you have insinuated. " "Claimed" or "mentioned" would make more sense.  

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