biǎnpiān

flat

Original meaning: 

signboard

Pictograph of a signboard attached to a door. Based on the original meaning "signboard". The meaning later shifted to "tablet" and "flat".

Components
户 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

door

冊 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

book

Depicts a flat thing affixed to a door.

Evolution

扁 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
扁 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
扁 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
扁 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
扁 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

biǎn

flat; tablet, signboard; (coll.) to beat (sb) up; old variant of [biǎn]

 

Piān

surname Pian

 

piān

small boat

Most common words with 扁
Freq.
Word
Meaning

flat

陈水扁

Chen Shui-Bian (1950-), Taiwanese DPP 民進黨|民进党 politician, president of the Republic of China 2000-2008

扁桃体

tonsil

扁平

flat

扁豆

haricot

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

Sound component in 19 characters (6 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*pˤe[r]ʔ

penX

biǎn

flat and thin


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 6.9518% of movies

2223rd most common character in movies

1737th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+6241

Shuowen

“扁,署也。从戶、冊。戶冊者,署門戶之文也。”


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