chuān
stream
Pictograph of a river.
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 川
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
river | ||
Sichuan province (Szechuan) in southwest China, abbr. 川 or 蜀, capital Chengdu 成都 | ||
glacier | ||
Sichuan province (Szechuan) in southwest China, abbr. 川[Chuān] or 蜀[Shǔ], capital Chengdu 成都[Chéngdū] | ||
Tokugawa, the ruling clan of Japan from 1550-1850 |
Component uses
Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*t.l̥u[n] (MC -jwen is irregular) | tsyhwen | chuān | stream, river |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 3.4439% of movies
2092nd most common character in movies
1109th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 3 |
Unicode | U+5DDD |
Shuowen | “川,貫穿通流水也。《虞書》曰:‘濬巜距川’,言深巜之水會為川也。” |
Sources
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