部分 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

bùfen HSK2

part

bù part

Original meaning: place in Gansu province

Phonosemantic compound. ⻏ represents the meaning and 咅 represents the sound.

Components

⻏ Meaning component

yì city

⻏ is a component form of 邑.

Change in meaning

⻏ hints at the original meaning of 部, "place in Gansu province", which is no longer the most common meaning of 部 in modern Mandarin.

咅 Sound component

pǒu to spit out

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	buwX	[b]ˤ(r)oʔ	lead (v.), govern

說文解字

天水狄部。从邑咅聲。

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

fēn, fèn, fen divide

Depicts a knife (刀) being used to cut two things apart (八).

Components

八 Sound Iconic component

bā eight

Depicts two things being separated.

Change in sound

分 and 八 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese.
分 *pə[n]
八 *pˤret

刀 Iconic component

dāo knife

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Sound (6 of 23 verified)

份纷贫粉芬扮氛盆盼吩颁忿汾酚玢棼邠坌貧鼢紛頒棻 show all 23 show fewer

Meaning (0 of 6 verified)

贫颁岔掰貧頒

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	pjun	pə[n]	divide
	bjunH	[m]-pə[n]-s	alloted duty

說文解字

《說文》：“分，別也。从八，从刀，刀以分別物也。”

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

部 bù part

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

分 fēn, fèn, fen divide

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (6 of 23 verified)

Meaning (0 of 6 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

bù part

fēn, fèn, fen divide