Chinese Character Wiki
电

diàn

electricity

Original meaning: 

lightning

Simplified form of 電, which depicts lightning (申) during a rainstorm (雨). The 雨 component was deleted for simplification.

Components
雨 deleted component

雨  Deleted component

yǔ, yù

  

rain

申 sound,iconic component

申  Sound Iconic component

shēn

  

to extend

Depicts lightning.

Evolution

电 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
电 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
电 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

电 (電) 

diàn

electricity, electric; lightning; electricity; electric (bound form); to get (or give) an electric shock; phone call or telegram etc; to send via telephone or telegram etc

Most common words with 电
Freq.
Word
Meaning

电话

telephone

打电话

to make a telephone call

电影

movie

电

electric

电视

TV

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

奄

Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 93.0162% of movies

140th most common character in movies

230th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

5

Traditional

電

Unicode

U+7535


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