攰

攰 (Kangxi radical 65, 支+2, 6 strokes, cangjie input 十水大尸 (JEKS), four-corner 4440₂, composition ⿺支力)

• KangXi: page 467, character 5
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 2308
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 1, page 367, character 3
• Unihan data for U+6530

Ideogrammic compound (會意) : 支 (“limb”) + 力 (“strength”) – limbs using a lot of strength, which results in tiredness.

Likely cognate with Hakka 𤸁 (khioi, “tired”).

The etymology is uncertain. This character itself is often regarded as the etymological character (本字), but the expected Cantonese reflex from the fanqie found in Jiyun (集韻) would be gwai³ instead of gui⁶. In recent years, this character has overtaken 癐 as the usual way this word is written, probably because of its appearance on the show 每日一字 in the 1980s.

The following are other etymologies that have been proposed:

• Bai (1980) suggests 䠩 (“tired”) as the etymological character. This character has been rejected by Yan (2000) for being a late word.
• Yan (2000) suggests 睡 (“to sleep”) as the etymological character: *gljiois (Old Chinese, based on Zhengzhang, 1987) > *gljioi > *gioi > *kioi > *koi > *kui (Guangzhou), *kɔi (Yangjiang).

攰

1. (Cantonese) tired; exhausted; fatigued

• Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (教育部異體字字典), C04544-002#28
• (Cantonese) 粵音資料集叢

(uncommon “Hyōgai” kanji)

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

• On (unclassified): き (ki)
• Kun: つかれきる (tsukarekiru)