tóutou

head

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
頁 iconic component

  Iconic component

xié

  

(head), page

Depicts a head on top of a person.

豆 sound component

  Sound component

dòu

  

bean

Evolution

頭 Bronze script Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)

Bronze script

Late Spring and Autumn (~500 BC)
頭 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
頭 Clerical script Wu (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

tóu

head; top; chief, first; boss; hair style; the top; end; beginning or end; a stub; remnant; chief; side; aspect; first; leading; classifier for pigs or livestock; CL:|[gè]

() 

tou

suffix for nouns

Most common words with 頭
Freq.
Word
Meaning

head

头发

hair (on the head)

回头

to turn round

镜头

camera lens

石头

stone

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[m-t]ˤo

duw

tóu

head


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 97.5813% of movies

168th most common character in movies

147th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

16

Simplified

Unicode

U+982D

Shuowen

“頭,首也。从頁,豆聲。”


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