yìn
Pictograph of a kneeling person (卩) being held down by a hand (爪). Based on the original meaning "restrain", now written as 抑. The meaning later shifted to "push down", "stamp", and "print".
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 印
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
impression | ||
to print | ||
India | ||
(American) Indian | ||
Indonesia (abbr. for 印度尼西亞|印度尼西亚) |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[ʔ]iŋ-s | 'jinH | yìn | seal |
Statistics
HSK level 6
Appears in 45.5550% of movies
850th most common character in movies
640th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 5 |
Unicode | U+5370 |
Shuowen | “印,執政所持信也。从爪,从卪。” |
Sources
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