Chinese Character Wiki
辨

biàn

distinguish

Original meaning: 

to cut into two parts

刂 (knife) added between two 辛 (chisel) components or 辡 conveying the original meaning "to cut into two parts". The meaning has shifted over time and now means "distinguish". 辡 also provides the sound.

Components
辡 sound,iconic component

辡  Sound Iconic component

biàn

  

criminals accusing one another

Here used to depict an object being cut into two parts. 辡 also gives the sound.

刂 iconic component

刂  Iconic component

dāo

  

knife

Depicts a knife.

Evolution

辨 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
辨 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
辨 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

辨  

biàn

distinguish, discriminate; to distinguish; to recognize

Most common words with 辨
Freq.
Word
Meaning

分辨

to distinguish

辨认

to recognize

分辨率

resolution (of images, monitors, scanners etc)

辨

to distinguish

辨别

to differentiate

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[b]renʔ

bjenX

biàn

distinguish


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 9.5147% of movies

2110th most common character in movies

1910th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

16

Unicode

U+8FA8

Shuowen

“辦，判也。从刀，辡聲。”


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