Chinese Character Wiki
命

mìng

life

Original meaning: 

command

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 令 represents the sound and meaning. Based on the original meaning "command". The meaning later shifted to "fate" and "life".

Components
口 meaning component

口  Meaning component

kǒu

  

mouth

令 sound,meaning component

令  Sound Meaning component

lìng, líng, lǐng

  

command

令 also serves as a meaning component.

Evolution

命 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
命 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
命 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

命  

mìng

life; destiny, fate, luck; an order, instruction; fate; order or command; to assign a name, title etc

Most common words with 命
Freq.
Word
Meaning

生命

living being

命

life

革命

revolution

命令

order

命运

fate

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*m-riŋ-s (dialect: *m-r- > *mr-, *-iŋ> *-eŋ)

mjaengH

mìng

command (n.)


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 83.7258% of movies

303rd most common character in movies

258th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+547D

Shuowen

“命，使也。从口，从令。”


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