ér, r
son
Pictograph of a child (人) with an opening in the top of its head (囟). Represents the soft spot (fontanel) at the top of young infant heads. The 囟 component is written like 臼.
Components
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Component uses
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*ŋe | nye | ér | child |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 97.1648% of movies
76th most common character in movies
192nd most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+5152 |
Shuowen | “兒,孺子也。从儿,象小兒頭囟未合。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.687
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