Chinese Character Wiki
觀

guān, guàn

observe

Phonosemantic compound. 見 represents the meaning and 雚 represents the sound.

Components
見 meaning component

見  Meaning component

jiàn, xiàn

  

see

雚 sound component

雚  Sound component

guàn, huán

  

heron

Evolution

觀 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
觀 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
觀 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
觀 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

观 (觀) 

guān

see, observe, view; appearance; to look at; to watch; to observe; to behold; to advise; concept; point of view; outlook

观 (觀) 

Guàn

surname Guan

观 (觀) 

guàn

Taoist monastery; palace gate watchtower; platform

Most common words with 觀
Freq.
Word
Meaning

观众

spectators

观察

to observe

观点

point of view

观

to look at

观看

to watch

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.qʷˤar

kwan

guān

look (v.)

*C.qʷˤar-s

kwanH

guàn

watchtower

*C.qʷˤar-s

kwanH

guàn

榮觀 imperial palace; walls and watchtowers


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 55.9987% of movies

689th most common character in movies

334th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

24

Simplified

观

Unicode

U+89C0

Shuowen

“觀，諦視也。从見，雚聲。，古文觀从囧。”


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