Chinese Character Wiki
稱

chēng, chèn, chèng

call

Original meaning: 

measure weight

Phonosemantic compound. 禾 represents the meaning and 爯 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "measure weight". The meaning later shifted to "lift", "raise", "praise", "reputation", and "call".

Components
禾 meaning component

禾  Meaning component

hé

  

grain stalk

Alludes to measuring the weight of grain.

爯 sound,meaning component

爯  Sound Meaning component

chēng, chèn

  

pick up

Evolution

稱 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
稱 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
稱 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
稱 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

称 (稱) 

chēng

call; name, brand; address; say; to weigh; to state; to name; name; appellation; to praise

称 (稱) 

chèn

to fit; balanced; suitable

称 (稱) 

chèng

variant of 秤[chèng]; steelyard

Most common words with 稱
Freq.
Word
Meaning

称

to weigh

称为

called

称呼

to call

声称

to claim

称之为

to call it...

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*tʰəŋ

tsyhing

chēng

weigh; evaluate; call

*mə-tʰəŋ-s

tsyhingH

chèng

steelyard


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 51.6098% of movies

882nd most common character in movies

449th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

14

Simplified

称

Unicode

U+7A31

Shuowen

“稱，銓也。从禾，爯聲。春分而禾生，日夏至晷景可度，禾有秒，秋分而秒定。律數十二，秒而當一分，十分而寸。其以為重，十二粟為一分，十二分為一銖。故諸程品皆从禾。”


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