axe
→
<measure of weight>
2 realizations
GROUP: Sinitic
Related shifts
| ID | Relation type | Meaning 1 | Direction | Meaning 2 |
| NEW Realization 1 (ID: 53083) | ||
|---|---|---|
| type | Polysemy | |
| language | Cantonese Chinese | |
| lexeme | gan1 (斤) | |
| meaning 1 | (archaic) axe | |
| direction | → | |
| meaning 2 | (Hong Kong) catty or kan, a traditional unit of weight, legally defined as equal to 0.60478982 kilograms (公斤 or sometimes approximated as 500 grams) | |
| reference | English Wiktionary | |
| comment | ||
| NEW Realization 2 (ID: 50417) | ||
|---|---|---|
| type | Polysemy | |
| language | Mandarin Chinese | |
| lexeme | 斤 (jīn) | |
| meaning 1 | axe (archaic) | 运斤成风 /yùnjīnchéngfēng to raise the wind with a swing of an axe (fig. for to possess skill, a master of one's craft) |
| direction | → | |
| meaning 2 | a traditional unit of weight, legally defined as equal to 0.60478982 kilograms or sometimes approximated as 500 grams) | 一斤半 yĩ jīn bàn one and a half jin (=750 g) |
| reference | BKRS | |
| comment | ||
Traditional Chinese unit of mass used across East and Southeast Asia, notably for weighing food and other groceries. Starting from the late Qing dynasty, the jin was also written in English as catty or kan based on the Malay name for the unit. The catty is still used in Southeast Asia as a unit of measurement in some contexts, especially by the significant Overseas Chinese populations across the region, particularly in Malaysia and Singapore.
The catty is traditionally equivalent to 1+1⁄3 pound avoirdupois, formalised as 604.78982 grams (g) in Hong Kong, 604.5 g (historically) in Vietnam, 604.79 g in Malaysia and 604.8 g in Singapore. In Taiwan, Japan and Korea, the unit is rounded to 600 g. In China, the jin is rounded to 500 g and called the market jin (市斤; shìjīn), to distinguish it from the kilogram (called the common jin; 公斤; gōngjīn)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_(mass)
Matisoff (2000) relates it to Proto-Lolo-Burmese *gyan (“pickax”); possibly also connected to Proto-Hmong-Mien *cwI:m (“axe”), Proto-Tai *xwaːnᴬ (“axe”) and/or Proto-Kam-Sui *kwan (Schuessler, 2007).