分支 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

fēnzhī HSK7

branch

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

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 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)

zhī support, hold up

Pictograph of a hand (又) lifting a piece of bamboo (个).

Components

个 Iconic component

gè, ge, gě [measure word]

Depicts a piece of bamboo.

又 Iconic component

yòu hand

Depicts a hand.

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	tsye	ke	support, hold up
	tsye	ke	branch (of tree), limb

說文解字

《說文》：“支，去竹之枝也。从手持半竹。，古文支。”

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)

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

支 zhī support, hold up

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (3 of 14 verified)

Meaning (0 of 2 verified)

Iconic (1)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

fēn, fèn, fen divide

zhī support, hold up