nián

year

Pictograph of a person () harvesting grain (). The harvest season is a yearly event.

Components
禾 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

grain stalk

人 iconic component

  Iconic component

rén

  

person

Evolution

年 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
年 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

nián

year; new-years; person's age; CL:|[gè]

 

Nián

surname Nian

() 

nián

grain; harvest (old); variant of [nián]

Most common words with 年
Freq.
Word
Meaning

grain

今年

this year

年轻

young

去年

last year

年代

age

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.nˤi[ŋ]

nen

nián

harvest; year


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 96.9246% of movies

154th most common character in movies

45th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+5E74

Shuowen

“年,穀孰也。从禾,千聲。”


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