dǎo

direct, lead

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
道 sound,meaning component

  Sound Meaning component

dào

  

path

寸 meaning component

  Meaning component

cùn

  

(hand), inch

Evolution

導 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
導 Clerical script Wu (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Clerical script

Wu (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)
導 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

dǎo

direct, guide, lead, conduct; to transmit; to lead; to guide; to conduct; to direct

Most common words with 導
Freq.
Word
Meaning

领导

lead

导致

to lead to

指导

to guide

引导

to guide

导弹

guided missile

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*lˤuʔ-s

dawH

dǎo

to lead


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 49.4794% of movies

805th most common character in movies

343rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

15

Simplified

Unicode

U+5C0E

Shuowen

“導,導引也。从寸,道聲。”


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