童

Translingual

Stroke order

Stroke order (Japan)

Han character

童 (Kangxi radical 117, 立+7, 12 strokes, cangjie input 卜廿田土 (YTWG), four-corner 0010₄, composition ⿱立里)

References

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 871, character 20
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 25775
• Dae Jaweon: page 1302, character 12
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 4, page 2711, character 9
• Unihan data for U+7AE5

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Chinese

simp. and trad.		童

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 童
Shang	Western Zhou	Warring States	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Chu slip and silk script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Characters in the same phonetic series (重) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 

	Old Chinese
撞	*rdoːŋ, *rdoːŋs
幢	*rdoːŋ, *rdoːŋs
橦	*rdoːŋ, *doːŋ, *tjoŋ
噇	*rdoːŋ
𩪘	*rdoːŋ
艟	*rdoːŋs, *tʰjoŋ
憧	*rdoːŋs, *tʰjoŋ
畽	*tʰoːnʔ, *tʰuːnʔ
董	*toːŋʔ
蕫	*toːŋʔ, *doːŋ
箽	*toːŋʔ
懂	*toːŋʔ
湩	*toːŋs, *tuːŋʔ, *toŋs
曈	*tʰoːŋ, *tʰoːŋʔ, *doːŋ
童	*doːŋ
僮	*doːŋ
瞳	*doːŋ
罿	*doːŋ, *tʰjoŋ
犝	*doːŋ
潼	*doːŋ, *tʰjoŋ
穜	*doːŋ, *doŋ
動	*doːŋʔ
慟	*doːŋs
堹	*toŋs
諥	*toŋs
蹱	*tʰoŋ, *tʰoŋs, *tjoŋ
重	*doŋ, *doŋʔ, *doŋs
緟	*doŋ, *doŋs
蝩	*doŋ
褈	*doŋ, *tʰjoŋ
鐘	*tjoŋ, *tjoŋ
鍾	*tjoŋ
籦	*tjoŋ
種	*tjoŋʔ, *tjoŋs
腫	*tjoŋʔ
踵	*tjoŋʔ
歱	*tjoŋʔ
喠	*tjoŋʔ, *tʰjoŋʔ
偅	*tjoŋs
衝	*tʰjoŋ
揰	*tʰjoŋs
尰	*djoŋʔ

Ideogrammic compound (會意／会意)  : A needle 䇂 (abbreviated to 立) going through a slave's eye. In ancient China, slaves were blinded. Compare 民.

It is also possible that it is a phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *doːŋ) : semantic 立 + phonetic 重 (OC *doŋ, *doŋʔ, *doŋs). The bottom component is unrelated to 里.

Original meaning was “boy servant”.

Etymology

“child; servant boy; virgin; bare”

Löffler (1966) compares it to Kukish dong (“boy”); see also Rengmitca tong-kléng' (“boy”), Areng thon-dén (“boy”) (Löffler, 1960). Schuessler (2007) also compares it to Hmong-Mien: White Hmong tub (“son”), Iu Mien dorn (“son”).

“shaman”

Norman and Mei (1976) proposed that the Min Chinese word for “shaman” (*-dəŋ^A), written as 童, is from an Austroasiatic substratum, cognate with Vietnamese đồng, Mon ဒံၚ် (tòŋ, “to dance while under daemonic possession; to proceed by leaps”), ဒေါၚ် (tòŋ, “shaman called in to organise kəlok dances”). This is rebutted in Sagart (2008), who cited the wide distribution of the sense “magician; sorcerer” in Chinese and the secondary meaning of 童 as “servant; messenger”, describing the resemblance between the Min and Austroasiatic terms as “undoubtedly fortuitous”.

Definitions

(deprecated template usage) 童

1. child

   兒童／儿童  ―  értóng  ―  child

   童子  ―  tóngzǐ  ―  boy

   童年  ―  tóngnián  ―  childhood

   • 這家商店童鞋有現貨。 [MSC, trad.]
     这家商店童鞋有现货。 [MSC, simp.]

     Zhè jiā shāngdiàn tóngxié yǒu xiànhuò. [Pinyin]

     The store had children's shoes in stock.

   • 那個病童的情況今天看起來比昨天更不妙。 [MSC, trad.]
     那个病童的情况今天看起来比昨天更不妙。 [MSC, simp.]

     Nà ge bìngtóng de qíngkuàng jīntiān kànqǐlái bǐ zuótiān gèng bùmiào. [Pinyin]

     The sick child looks still worse today than yesterday.

2. ^† young servant; servant boy

   門童／门童  ―  méntóng  ―  doorman

   書童／书童  ―  shūtóng  ―  page boy

   球童  ―  qiútóng  ―  caddie

3. (Min, dialectal Mandarin, dialectal Wu) shaman
4. ^† virgin
5. ^† bare; exposed
6. a surname
7. 12th tetragram of the Taixuanjing; "youthfulness" (𝌑)

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Japanese

Kanji

童

(Third grade kyōiku kanji)

1. juvenile, child

Readings

• Go-on: ずう (zū)^{←づう (duu, historical)}
• Kan-on: とう (tō)
• Kan’yō-on: どう (dō, Jōyō)
• Kun: わらわ (warawa, 童)^{←わらは (warafa, 童, historical)}; わらべ (warabe, 童, Jōyō)

Etymology 1

Kanji in this term
童
わらわ Grade: 3
kun'yomi

For pronunciation and definitions of 童 – see the following entry.

【わらわ】 [noun] (archaic, historical) a hairstyle, with the hair not tied up but hanging loose, typically worn by children [noun] (by extension, archaic) a child older than a baby but not yet an adult [noun] (archaic) a child servant, a child who does errands; (especially) a young servant of a Buddhist temple [noun] (archaic, historical) short for 五節の童女 (gosechi no warawa), a girl who dances in 五節(ごせち) (gosechi) festivals

(This term, 童, is an alternative spelling of the above term.)

Etymology 2

Kanji in this term
童
わらべ Grade: 3
kun'yomi

For pronunciation and definitions of 童 – see the following entry.

【わらべ】 [noun] a child [noun] a young servant [noun] (humble) my wife

(This term, 童, is an alternative spelling of the above term.)

Etymology 3

Kanji in this term
童
わらんべ Grade: 3
kun'yomi

For pronunciation and definitions of 童 – see the following entry.

【わらんべ】 [noun] (archaic) a child [noun] (archaic, by extension) someone who had not attained genpuku adulthood

(This term, 童, is an alternative spelling of the above term.)

Etymology 4

Kanji in this term
童
わらし Grade: 3
kun'yomi

For pronunciation and definitions of 童 – see the following entry: わらし

(The following entry is uncreated: わらし.)

Etymology 5

Kanji in this term
童
わっぱ Grade: 3
kun'yomi

For pronunciation and definitions of 童 – see the following entry.

【わっぱ】 [noun] (archaic) a child [noun] child, kid, boy (used in scolding a child or male person) [noun] (archaic) a young servant [adverb] (archaic, usually followed by と (to)) yelling loudly

(This term, 童, is an alternative spelling of the above term.)

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Korean

Hanja

童 • (dong) (hangeul 동, revised dong, McCune–Reischauer tong, Yale tong)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

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Vietnamese

Han character

(deprecated template usage) 童 (đồng)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.