Chinese Character Wiki
初

chū

beginning

Depicts cutting out fabric (衤) with a knife (刀), the first step in making clothes.

Components
衤 iconic component

衤  Iconic component

yī

  

clothes

衤 is a component form of 衣.

刀 iconic component

刀  Iconic component

dāo

  

knife

Evolution

初 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

初  

chū

beginning, initial, primary; at first; (at the) beginning; first; junior; basic

Most common words with 初
Freq.
Word
Meaning

初

at first

当初

at that time

最初

first

初步

initial

初中

junior high school

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ts]ʰra

tsrhjo

chū

beginning


Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 35.5919% of movies

1136th most common character in movies

667th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Unicode

U+521D

Shuowen

“初，始也。从刀，从衣。裁衣之始也。”


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