Chinese Character Wiki
常

cháng

common

Original meaning: 

lower garment

Phonosemantic compound. 巾 represents the meaning and 尚 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning, "lower garment", now written as 裳. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
尚 sound component

尚  Sound component

shàng

  

esteem

巾 meaning component

巾  Meaning component

jīn

  

cloth

Evolution

常 Bronze script Early Spring and Autumn (~700 BC)

Bronze script

Early Spring and Autumn (~700 BC)
常 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
常 Clerical script Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)

Clerical script

Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)
常 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

常  

cháng

common, normal, frequent, regular; always; ever; often; frequently; common; general; constant

常  

Cháng

surname Chang

Most common words with 常
Freq.
Word
Meaning

非常

very

正常

regular

经常

frequently

常

always

通常

regular

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

嫦

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[d]aŋ

dzyang

cháng

constant


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 96.0756% of movies

177th most common character in movies

187th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Unicode

U+5E38

Shuowen

“常，下帬也。从巾，尚聲。裳，常或从衣。”


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