wàn

ten thousand

Original meaning: 

to not be seen

Variant of . Depicts a person () with a cover on top, conveying the original meaning "to not be seen". The current meaning is a phonetic loan. Simplified form of .

Components
一 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

one

Used here to depict a cover.

人 iconic component

  Iconic component

rén

  

person

Evolution

万 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
万 Bronze script Early Warring States (~400 BC)

Bronze script

Early Warring States (~400 BC)
万 Clerical script Jin dynasty (266-420 AD)

Clerical script

Jin dynasty (266-420 AD)
万 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

see 万俟[Mò​qí]

() 

wàn

ten thousand; innumerable; a great number

() 

Wàn

surname Wan

Most common words with 万
Freq.
Word
Meaning

ten thousand

万岁

Your Majesty

千万

ten million

万分

very much

万能

omnipotent

Component uses

Meaning component in 3 characters (0 verified)

Sound component in 3 characters (1 verified)

Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 74.1310% of movies

381st most common character in movies

322nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

3

Traditional

Unicode

U+4E07
Sources

季旭昇《說文新證》p.701

黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.2839-2840



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