Chinese Character Wiki
天

tiān

sky

Original meaning: 

head

Depicts a person (大) with an emphasized head. Based on the original meaning "head". The meaning later shifted to "top", "high", and "sky".

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts a head.

大 iconic component

大  Iconic component

dà, dài

  

big

Depicts a person.

Evolution

天 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
天 Bronze script Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)

Bronze script

Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
天 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
天 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
天 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

天  

tiān

sky, heaven; god, celestial; day; sky; heaven

Most common words with 天
Freq.
Word
Meaning

天

day

今天

today

明天

tomorrow

昨天

yesterday

每天

every day

Component uses

Meaning component in 3 characters (1 verified)

祆 奏 昊

Sound component in 4 characters (1 verified)

祆 吞 蚕 忝

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

吴

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*l̥ˤi[n]

then

tiān

heaven

*l̥ˤi[n] (W dialect: l̥ˤ- > Hàn-time *xˤ- > MC x-)

xen

xiān

heaven


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 99.8558% of movies

63rd most common character in movies

78th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

4

Unicode

U+5929

Shuowen

“天，顛也。至高无上，从一、大。”


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