Chinese Character Wiki
奔

bēn, bèn

run fast

Like 走 (walk), depicts a 大 (man) but with more than one 止 (foot) to indicate faster movement.

Components
大 iconic component

大  Iconic component

dà, dài

  

big

犇 iconic component

犇  Iconic component

bēn

  

run fast

Originally depicted three 止 (foot). Later written on its own as 犇(run) to mean the same as 奔 (run). Seal script form became confused with 芔 (grass), the original form of standalone 卉 (grass).

Evolution

奔 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
奔 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

奔  

bēn

run fast, flee; rush about; run; to hurry; to rush; to run quickly; to elope

奔  

bèn

to go to; to head for; towards

奔 (犇) 

bēn

(used in given names); variant of 奔[bēn]

奔 (逩) 

bēn

variant of 奔[bèn]

Most common words with 奔
Freq.
Word
Meaning

奔

to hurry

奔驰

to speed

奔跑

to run

私奔

to elope

直奔

to go straight to

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

锛

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*pˤur

pwon

bēn

run (v.)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 13.9676% of movies

1859th most common character in movies

1285th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+5954

Shuowen

“奔，走也。从夭，賁省聲。與走同意，俱从夭。”


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