跌跌撞撞 Origin — Chinese Character Wiki

diēdiezhuàngzhuàng

stagger

diē stumble

Phonosemantic compound. 足 represents the meaning and 失 represents the sound.

Components

足 Meaning component

zú foot

失 Sound Meaning component

shī lose

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	det	lˤi[t]	stumble

說文解字

《說文》：“跌，踼也。从足，失聲。一曰越也。”

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)

zhuàng knock against

Phonosemantic compound. 扌 represents the meaning and 童 represents the sound.

Components

扌 Meaning component

shou, shǒu hand

扌 is a component form of 手.

童 Sound component

tóng child

Change in sound

撞 and 童 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Middle Chinese.
撞 draewng
童 duwng

Character Evolution

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	draewng	[N-t]ˤ<r>oŋ	strike
	draewngH	N-tˤ<r>oŋ-s	strike

說文解字

《說文》：“撞，卂擣也。从手，童聲。”

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)

跌 diē stumble

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

撞 zhuàng knock against

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

diē stumble

zhuàng knock against