zhēn
real
Original meaning:
precious
Based on the original meaning "precious", now written as 珍. The meaning later shifted to "genuine" and "true".
Components
Evolution

Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*ti[n] | tsyin | zhēn | true, real |
Statistics
HSK level 1
Appears in 99.8719% of movies
54th most common character in movies
204th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 10 |
Unicode | U+771F |
Shuowen | “真,僊人變形而登天也。从,从目,从。八,所乘載也。,古文真。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.643-644
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