封 - Dong Chinese dictionary

fēng

letter

Original meaning:

create a boundary with plants

Depicts using hands (寸) to cultivate plants (丰). Based on the original meaning "create a boundary with plants". The meaning later shifted to "divide off", "seal", and "letter".

Components

寸 Iconic component

cùn

(hand), inch

Depicts a hand.

丰 Sound Iconic component

fēng

luxuriant

Depicts a plant growing in the ground.

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 丰 than it was in ancient scripts.

Evolution

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

封

fēng

letter, envelope; feudal; to confer; to grant; to bestow a title; to seal; classifier for sealed objects, esp. letters

封

Fēng

surname Feng

Most common words with 封

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	封	to confer
	封面	cover (of a publication)
	封锁	to blockade
	封闭	to seal
	信封	envelope

Component uses

Sound component in 3 characters (1 verified)

幫葑犎

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
*p(r)oŋ	pjowng	fēng	raise a mound; enfeoff

Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 37.6101% of movies

963rd most common character in movies

871st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	9
Unicode	U+5C01
Shuowen	“封，爵諸矦之土也。从之，从土，从寸，守其制度也。公侯百里，伯七十里，子男五十里。，古文封省。，籀文从。”

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

漢語多功能字庫