Chinese Character Wiki
多

duō

much

Depicts two pieces of meat together to convey the meaning "much" or "plentiful". In ancient China meat was a rare treat. Unrelated to 夕.

Components
肉 iconic component

肉  Iconic component

ròu

  

meat

Depicts a piece of meat.

肉 iconic component

肉  Iconic component

ròu

  

meat

Depicts a piece of meat.

Evolution

多 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

多  

duō

much, many; more than, over; many; much; often; a lot of; numerous; more; in excess; how (to what extent); multi-; Taiwan pr. [duó] when it means "how"

Most common words with 多
Freq.
Word
Meaning

多

many

多少

number

许多

many

好多

many

多久

how long?

Component uses

Meaning component in 5 characters (3 verified)

夠 够 夥 侈 奓

Sound component in 5 characters (1 verified)

移 爹 哆 黟 眵

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[t.l]ˤaj

ta

duō

many


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 99.8879% of movies

77th most common character in movies

61st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+591A

Shuowen

“多，重也。从重夕。夕者，相繹也，故為多。重夕為多，重日為。，古文多。”


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