Chinese Character Wiki
琴

qín

Chinese lute or guitar

The top component is a pictograph of a zither-like stringed musical instrument. 今 is a sound component.

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Pictograph of a stringed musical instrument similar to a zither.

今 sound component

今  Sound component

jīn

  

now

Evolution

琴 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

琴  

qín

Chinese lute or guitar; guqin 古琴[gǔ​qín] (a type of zither); musical instrument in general

琴 (琹) 

qín

variant of 琴[qín], guqin or zither

Most common words with 琴
Freq.
Word
Meaning

钢琴

piano

琴

musical instrument in general

小提琴

fiddle

弹琴

to play or strum a lute or other stringed instrument

大提琴

cello

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[C.ɢ](r)[ə]m

gim

qín

lute


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 11.1965% of movies

1515th most common character in movies

1701st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

12

Unicode

U+7434

Shuowen

“琴，禁也。神農所作。洞越，練朱五弦，周加二弦。象形。”


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