Chinese Character Wiki
開

kāi

open

Pictograph of two hands (廾) opening the bolt (一) on a door (門).

Components
門 iconic component

門  Iconic component

mén

  

door

◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts a bolt on a door.

廾 iconic component

廾  Iconic component

gǒng

  

two hands

Evolution

開 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

开 (開) 

kāi

open; initiate, begin, start; to open; to start; to turn on; to boil; to write out (a prescription, check, invoice etc); to operate (a vehicle); carat (gold); abbr. for Kelvin, 開爾文|开尔文[Kāi​'ěr​wén]; abbr. for 開本|开本[kāi​běn], book format

Most common words with 開
Freq.
Word
Meaning

开始

to begin

开

to open

离开

to depart

开心

to feel happy

开发

to develop

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*Nə-[k]ʰˤəj

khoj

kāi

to open (v.i.)

*[k]ʰˤəj

khoj

kāi

to open (v.t.)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 99.9840% of movies

65th most common character in movies

94th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

12

Simplified

开𫔭

Unicode

U+958B

Shuowen

“開，張也。从門，从幵。，古文開。”


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