Chinese Character Wiki
昆

kūn

elder brother

Original meaning: 

insect

Depicts an insect. Based on the original meaning "insect", now preserved in the word 昆虫. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Evolution

昆 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
昆 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

昆  

kūn

elder brother; descendants; descendant; a style of Chinese poetry

昆 (崑) 

kūn

used in place names, notably Kunlun Mountains 崑崙|昆仑[Kūn​lún]; (also used for transliteration)

昆 (崐) 

kūn

variant of 崑|昆[kūn]

Most common words with 昆
Freq.
Word
Meaning

昆虫

insect

昆明

Kunming prefecture-level city and capital of Yunnan province in southwest China

昆

descendant

昆仑

Kunlun (Karakorum) mountain range in Xinjiang

昆明市

Kunming, prefecture-level city and capital of Yunnan province in southwest China

Component uses

Sound component in 17 characters (1 verified)

混 崑 棍 琨 餛 馄 錕 锟 鯤 鲲 緄 绲 辊 輥 醌 鵾 鹍

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[k]ˤu[n]

kwon

kūn

elder brother


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 3.3477% of movies

2333rd most common character in movies

1759th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+6606

Shuowen

“昆，同也。从日，从比。”


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