About
The character 杈 is a semantic-phonetic compound, structurally composed of the tree radical 木 indicating its wooden nature, combined with 叉 which provides both a sound clue and the core meaning of "fork" or "branching". Its traditional form is identical. The character originally referred specifically to the branching fork of a tree. Over time, its application extended beyond the natural object to denote man-made tools that share a forked shape, such as a wooden pitchfork or a pole with a forked end used for support, with its primary meaning shifting to these agricultural implements while the sense of a tree fork became less common.
Etymology Hide
