Chinese Character Wiki
電

diàn

electricity

Original meaning: 

lightning

Depicts lightning (申) during a rainstorm (雨).

Components
雨 meaning component

雨  Meaning component

yǔ, yù

  

rain

申 sound,iconic component

申  Sound Iconic component

shēn

  

to extend

Depicts lightning.

Evolution

電 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
電 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

电 (電) 

diàn

electricity, electric; lightning; electricity; electric (bound form); to get (or give) an electric shock; phone call or telegram etc; to send via telephone or telegram etc

Most common words with 電
Freq.
Word
Meaning

电话

telephone

打电话

to make a telephone call

电影

movie

电

electric

电视

TV

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*lˤi[n]-s

denH

diàn

lightning


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 93.0162% of movies

140th most common character in movies

230th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

13

Simplified

电

Unicode

U+96FB

Shuowen

“電，陰陽激燿也。从雨，从申。，古文電。”


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