wén

hear, smell

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
耳 meaning component

  Meaning component

ěr

  

ear

門 sound component

  Sound component

mén

  

door

Evolution

聞 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
聞 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
聞 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

wén

hear; smell; make known; news; to hear; well-known; famous; reputation; fame; to smell; to sniff at

() 

Wén

surname Wen

Most common words with 聞
Freq.
Word
Meaning

新闻

news

news

新闻发布会

news conference

传闻

rumor

丑闻

scandal

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*mu[n]

mjun

wén

hear (v.)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 52.1224% of movies

765th most common character in movies

825th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

14

Simplified

Unicode

U+805E

Shuowen

“聞,知聞也。从耳,門聲。,古文从昏。”


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