zǎo

early

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. The form of the original phonetic component was abbreviated to look like .

Components
日 meaning component

  Meaning component

  

sun

棗 sound component

  Sound component

zǎo

  

date tree

Evolution

早 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
早 Bronze script Late Warring States (~250 BC)

Bronze script

Late Warring States (~250 BC)
早 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

zǎo

early; soon; morning; Good morning!; long ago; prematurely

Most common words with 早
Freq.
Word
Meaning

early

早上

early morning

早就

already at an earlier time

早餐

breakfast

早晨

early morning

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (1 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*Nə.tsˤuʔ

tsawX

zǎo

early


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 90.8217% of movies

296th most common character in movies

462nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+65E9

Shuowen

“早,晨也。从日在甲上。”


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