chéng

city

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
土 meaning component

  Meaning component

  

earth

成 sound component

  Sound component

chéng

  

completed

Evolution

城 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
城 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

chéng

castle; city, town; municipality; city walls; city; town; CL:[zuò],[dào],|[gè]

Most common words with 城
Freq.
Word
Meaning

城市

city

city

城堡

castle

城镇

town

费城

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[d]eŋ

dzyeng

chéng

city wall


Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 55.7745% of movies

624th most common character in movies

413th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+57CE

Shuowen

“城,以盛民也。从土,从成,成亦聲。,籀文城从。”


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