買

買 (Kangxi radical 154, 貝+5, 12 strokes, cangjie input 田中月山金 (WLBUC), four-corner 6080₆, composition ⿱罒貝)

• 賣, 䁲, 㵋, 蕒, 鷶, 嘪

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1206, character 21
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 36708
• Dae Jaweon: page 1669, character 9
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 6, page 3633, character 7
• Unihan data for U+8CB7

Historical forms of the character 買
Shang	Spring and Autumn
Bronze inscriptions	Bronze inscriptions

Ideogrammic compound (會意／会意) : 网 (“net”) + 貝 (“money cowrie”).

Baxter and Sagart (2014) consider it to be a phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声) : abbreviated phonetic 羅 (*rˤaj) + semantic 貝 (“money cowrie”).

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g/m/s-laj ~ *r/s-lej ~ *b-rej (“to buy; to barter”); compare Proto-Karen *breᴬ (“to buy”), Proto-Bodo-Garo *prai¹ (“to buy”), Tibetan རྗེ (rje, “to exchange; to barter”) (Schuessler, 2007; Sagart, 1999, 2011). Benedict (1967, 1972) considers this allofam to be a result of borrowing from Austro-Tai *(m)baḷi several times into Sino-Tibetan languages.

Alternatively, Haudricourt and Strecker (1991) consider 買 and 賣 to be borrowed from Hmong-Mien, which may have a family of verbs related to possession: *mɛjX (“to buy”, corresponding to 買), *mɛjH (“to buy”, corresponding to 賣), *ʔ-mɛj (“to grasp”), *n-mɛj (“to have”) (Ratliff, 2010). However, Sagart (1995) argues that the direction of borrowing is more likely to be from Chinese to Hmong-Mien because Hmong-Mien does not seem to have a suffix that would give rise to the tone in the word for “to buy”. In addition to these two ways of relating the Chinese word to Hmong-Mien, Ratliff (2010) proposes common inheritance as a third option and maintains that more evidence is needed to determine which of the three explanations are correct.

The surname only appears among Taiwanese aboriginals and Hui people in Mainland China. The surname is from the Siraya name Takalomay in Taiwan or possibly from the name 買買提／买买提 (Mǎimǎití, “Mehmet”) for Hui people.

買

1. to buy; to purchase

   我買了輛新車。／我买了辆新车。  ―  Wǒ mǎi le liàng xīn chē.  ―  I bought a new car.

2. to bribe
3. to persuade
4. a surname

• (antonym(s) of “to buy”): 賣／卖 (mài, “to sell”)

• → Proto-Hmong-Mien: *mɛjX (“to buy”)

• “Entry #9063”, in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan] (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2023.

(grade 2 “Kyōiku” kanji)

1. to buy

• Go-on: め (me)
• Kan-on: ばい (bai, Jōyō)
• Kun: かう (kau, 買う, Jōyō)^{←かふ (kafu, 買ふ, historical)}

• 買収(ばいしゅう) (baishū)
• 買(か)い物(もの) (kaimono)

• 売

• 買(か)う (kau)

買 (eumhun 살 매 (sal mae))

1. Hanja form^? of 매 (“buy”).
2. "Goguryeo" language: *me, “river, water”

買: Hán Nôm readings: mãi, mạy, mảy, mấy, mới, mái, mải, với

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