Dong Chinese dictionary

qián

in front

Original meaning:

cut

Phonosemantic compound. 歬 represents the sound, and 刂 represents the meaning. Based on the original meaning "cut", now written as 剪. The current meaning "in front" is a phonetic loan.

Components

歬 Sound component

qián

go forward

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 歬 than it was in ancient scripts.

刂 Meaning component

dāo

knife

刂 hints at the original meaning of 前, "cut", which is no longer the most common meaning of 前 in modern Mandarin.

Evolution

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

前

qián

in front, forward; preceding; front; forward; ahead; first; top (followed by a number); future; ago; before; BC (e.g. 前293年); former; formerly

Most common words with 前

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	前	front
	之前	before
	目前	currently
	以前	before
	前面	ahead

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (2 verified)

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

漢語多功能字庫

The Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese Characters

Original meaning:

Freq.

Word

Meaning