yín
sing
Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 今 represents the sound.
Evolution

Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 吟
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
to moan | ||
to chant | ||
to mutter to oneself irresolutely | ||
to chant | ||
to recite poetry |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*m-qʰ(r)[ə]m | ngim | yín | chant, intone |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 2.7391% of movies
2696th most common character in movies
2015th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 7 |
Unicode | U+541F |
Shuowen | “吟,呻也。从口,今聲。,吟或从音。訡,或从言。” |
Sources
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