Chinese Character Wiki
乡

xiāng

hometown

Simplified form of 鄉. Pictograph of two people facing each other, kneeling down to share a meal. Based on the original meaning "feast" or "offer food", now written as 饗. The meaning later shifted to "hometown". The right two components were removed for simplification.

Components
卩 iconic component

卩  Iconic component

jié

  

person kneeling

Depicts a kneeling person facing right.

飠 deleted component

飠  Deleted component

shí

  

eat

卩 deleted component

卩  Deleted component

jié

  

person kneeling

Depicts a kneeling person facing left.

Evolution

乡 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
乡 Bronze script Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)

Bronze script

Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
乡 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Traditional script

Modern
乡 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

乡 (鄉) 

xiāng

country; rural; village; country or countryside; native place; home village or town; township (PRC administrative unit)

Most common words with 乡
Freq.
Word
Meaning

乡村

rustic

家乡

hometown

乡

native place

乡下

countryside

城乡

city and countryside

Component uses

Sound component in 2 characters (0 verified)

飨 芗

Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 20.9034% of movies

1362nd most common character in movies

922nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

3

Traditional

鄉

Unicode

U+4E61


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License