Etymograph

English

small seal script

Small seal script comes from Chinese 小篆.

  1. Chinesemodern小篆1
  2. Englishtodaysmall seal script1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English small seal script

Lineage

  1. Chinesemodern小篆Wiktionary, English small seal script
  2. Englishtodaysmall seal scriptWiktionary, English small seal script

Made of the words small + seal + script

Proto-Germanic *smalaz

Proto-West Germanic *smal

Old English smæl ‘narrow’

Middle English smal ‘small’

English small

Proto-Germanic *selhaz ‘seal (animal)’

Proto-West Germanic *selh ‘seal (animal)’

Old English seolh ‘seal (animal)’

Middle English sel ‘seal (pinniped)’

English seal

Proto-Indo-European *(s)kréybʰeti

…

Latin scrībō ‘to write’

Latin scrīptum ‘something written’

Old French escrit ‘writing(s)’

Middle English scrit ‘writing; document’

English script

Every English word from Chinese 小篆

Today it means

noun An ancient Chinese calligraphic script, standardized in 220 BC by Li Si, the chancellor of the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty, from various forms used by Qin

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “small seal script”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Chinese 小篆 / small seal script

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