船

Alternative forms

The top-right part can be either 八 or 几, depending on the script; Japanese: 船, Chinese: 船; see Han unification

Han character

船 (radical 137, 舟+5, 11 strokes, cangjie input 竹卜金口 (HYCR) or 竹卜竹弓口 (HYHNR), four-corner 2846₀, composition ⿰舟㕣)

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 船
Western Zhou	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)
Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *ɦljon) : semantic 舟 (“boat”) + phonetic 㕣 (OC *lon).

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-lawŋ (“boat”). Compare Burmese လောင်း (laung:, “long and narrow boat”).

Sagart (1999) interprets Old Chinese 船 (OC *ɦljon) as a nominal derivate of the verb 沿 (OC *lon, “to go downstream a river”). The Fangyan states the this word was commonly used in western China, but, by Han times, it had completely desplaced the earlier 舟 (OC *tjɯw), used in central and western China.

Alternatively, the Proto-Sino-Tibetan root could be a loan from Proto-Mon-Khmer *d₂lu(u)ŋ ~ *d₂l(u)əŋ (“boat”), whence Mon ဂၠုၚ် (klɜ̀ŋ, “canoe, small boat”), perhaps a derivate of Proto-Mon-Khmer *luŋh ~ *luuŋh ~ *ləŋh (“to hollow, excavate, bore”), see Khmer លុង (lung, “to dig a hole”) and Vietnamese trũng (“concave”) (Sidwell, 2006; Schuessler, 2007).

Pronunciation

Definitions

船

1. watercraft; vessel (including ships, boats, sailing ships, hovercrafts; sometimes including submarines) (Classifier: 條／条 m; 艘 m; 隻／只 m)
2. any objects with shapes of functions simiar to watercraft

   太空船  ―  tàikōngchuán  ―  spaceship

   1. alcohol cup
3. to carry by watercraft
4. button
5. A surname​.

Compounds

Kanji

(grade 2 “Kyōiku” kanji)

1. ship, vessel, large ship

Etymology 1

Etymology 2

References

Hanja

船 • (seon) (hangeul 선, revised seon, McCune–Reischauer sŏn, Yale sen)

1. ship, boat, vessel

Han character

船 (thuyền)

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