Chinese Character Wiki
前

qián

in front

Original meaning: 

cut

Phonosemantic compound. 歬 represents the sound, and 刂 represents the meaning. Based on the original meaning "cut", now written as 剪. The current meaning "in front" is a phonetic loan.

Components
歬 sound component

歬  Sound component

qián

  

go forward

刂 meaning component

刂  Meaning component

dāo

  

knife

Evolution

前 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
前 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

前  

qián

in front, forward; preceding; front; forward; ahead; first; top (followed by a number); future; ago; before; BC (e.g. 前293年); former; formerly

Most common words with 前
Freq.
Word
Meaning

前

front

之前

before

目前

currently

以前

before

前面

ahead

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (2 verified)

箭 剪 煎 翦 湔

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[dz]ˤen (~ *m-dzˤen)

dzen

qián

before


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 99.6156% of movies

109th most common character in movies

93rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+524D

Shuowen

“歬，不行而進謂之歬。从止在舟上。”


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