鄉 - Dong Chinese dictionary

xiāng

hometown

Pictograph of two people facing each other, kneeling down to share a meal. Based on the original meaning "feast" or "offer food", now written as 饗. The meaning later shifted to "hometown".

Components

卩 Iconic component

jié

person kneeling

Depicts a kneeling person facing right.

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 卩 than it was in ancient scripts.

飠 Iconic component

shí

eat

卩 Iconic component

jié

person kneeling

Depicts a kneeling person facing left.

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 卩 than it was in ancient scripts.

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

Modern

Definitions

乡 (鄉)

xiāng

country; rural; village; country or countryside; native place; home village or town; township (PRC administrative unit)

Most common words with 鄉

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	乡村	rustic
	家乡	hometown
	乡	native place
	乡下	countryside
	城乡	city and countryside

Component uses

Sound component in 4 characters (2 verified)

嚮響饗薌

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
*qʰaŋ	xjang	xiāng	village; district
*qʰaŋʔ	xjangX	xiǎng	feast
*qʰaŋ-s	xjangH	xiàng	to face

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 20.9034% of movies

1362nd most common character in movies

922nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	11
Simplified	乡
Unicode	U+9109
Shuowen	“鄉，國離邑，民所封鄉也。嗇夫別治，封圻之內六鄉，六鄉治之。从，皀聲。”

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

漢語多功能字庫

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Word

Meaning