Just learned this word and I’m curious why the word for electronic is made of the kanji for, roughly, “electric” and “child”. Is there anywhere online that I can read about the etymologies of this and other similar interesting 熟語?
子 doesn’t exclusively mean a literal child. It can mean a subset/tiny thing etc. Don’t take my word for it, but an electron is a tiny piece of electricity, isn’t it? And the electronic meaning is just an attributive quality of the object. Extended meaning, probably
電子 = Electron
電 = Lightning, Electricity
子 = Small object / thing, -ion/-on (in the scientific sense)
Electricity is an extended meaning of 電子
電子 just means “electric child”, but 子 is a diminutive suffix as well. It’s related to 電気.
電 originally meant “lightning”, and still holds that meaning in Mandarin. 気 means “spirit/essence”. It’s similar to when it’s used as the suffix [げ(気)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/28752/what-does-%E3%81%92-mean-as-a-suffix). So put those two together and you create a new two-character compound that means “the essence of lightning”, ie electricity.
In addition to the other answers, the word is originally Chinese, [where 子 is often used as a suffix to indicate “thing” (as well as the word child) in order to make words two syllables](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iro19GB6fH8) and is where using 子 as this kind of suffix comes from.
You can see this in other Chinese-origin words like 様子, 椅子, 帽子, 獅子 (and possibly 障子? Wiktionary says it’s only used in Japanese but Japanese articles on 襖 and 障子 claim that 障子 is originally a Chinese word). But there are words like 硝子 (archaic way of writing グラス) which might be Japanese in origin but styled to look like a Chinese word (there is an archaic Chinese word written as 硝子 but it doesn’t mean “glass”).
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子 doesn’t exclusively mean a literal child. It can mean a subset/tiny thing etc. Don’t take my word for it, but an electron is a tiny piece of electricity, isn’t it?
And the electronic meaning is just an attributive quality of the object. Extended meaning, probably
電子 = Electron
電 = Lightning, Electricity
子 = Small object / thing, -ion/-on (in the scientific sense)
Electricity is an extended meaning of 電子
電子 just means “electric child”, but 子 is a diminutive suffix as well. It’s related to 電気.
電 originally meant “lightning”, and still holds that meaning in Mandarin. 気 means “spirit/essence”. It’s similar to when it’s used as the suffix [げ(気)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/28752/what-does-%E3%81%92-mean-as-a-suffix). So put those two together and you create a new two-character compound that means “the essence of lightning”, ie electricity.
In addition to the other answers, the word is originally Chinese, [where 子 is often used as a suffix to indicate “thing” (as well as the word child) in order to make words two syllables](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iro19GB6fH8) and is where using 子 as this kind of suffix comes from.
You can see this in other Chinese-origin words like 様子, 椅子, 帽子, 獅子 (and possibly 障子? Wiktionary says it’s only used in Japanese but Japanese articles on 襖 and 障子 claim that 障子 is originally a Chinese word). But there are words like 硝子 (archaic way of writing グラス) which might be Japanese in origin but styled to look like a Chinese word (there is an archaic Chinese word written as 硝子 but it doesn’t mean “glass”).