open

Simplified form of . Depicts a hand () opening a door () of an opening (). The (hand) component was later removed for simplification.

Components
户 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

door

口 iconic component

  Iconic component

kǒu

  

mouth

Depicts an opening.

又 deleted component

  Deleted component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Depicts a hand.

Evolution

启 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
启 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
启 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
启 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

open; begin; to open; to start; to initiate; to enlighten or awaken; to state; to inform

() 

Qi son of Yu the Great [Yǔ], reported founder of the Xia Dynasty 夏朝[Xià​Cháo] (c. 2070-c. 1600 BC)

() 

variant of |[qǐ]

Most common words with 启
Freq.
Word
Meaning

启动

to start (a machine)

开启

to open

启发

to enlighten

to open

启示

to reveal

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*kʰˤijʔ

khejX

open (v.)


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 21.8645% of movies

1375th most common character in movies

1320th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Traditional

Unicode

U+542F

Shuowen

“启,開也。从戶,从口。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License