wén
writing
Pictograph of a man with writing (possibly a tattoo) on his chest. In later scripts the writing was abbreviated to a dot or omitted altogether.
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Component uses
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*mə[n] | mjun | wén | ornate |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 59.9551% of movies
481st most common character in movies
148th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 4 |
Unicode | U+6587 |
Shuowen | “文,錯畫也。象交文。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.706
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