Chinese Character Wiki
因

yīn

cause

Pictograph of clothing surrounding (囗) a person (大), now written as 裀. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
囗 iconic component

囗  Iconic component

wéi

  

surround

Depicts clothing surrounding a person.

大 iconic component

大  Iconic component

dà, dài

  

big

Depicts a person.

Evolution

因 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
因 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
因 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
因 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

因  

yīn

cause, reason; by; because (of); cause; reason; because

因 (囙) 

yīn

old variant of 因[yīn]

Most common words with 因
Freq.
Word
Meaning

因为

because

原因

cause

因此

thus

因

cause

因素

element

Component uses

Sound component in 10 characters (4 verified)

恩 烟 姻 裀 咽 茵 胭 氤 洇 铟

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

裀

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ʔi[n]

'jin

yīn

rely on


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 99.3272% of movies

103rd most common character in movies

96th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+56E0

Shuowen

“因，就也。从囗、大。”


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