Chinese Character Wiki
首

shǒu

head

Pictograph of a head (hair above a face with an eye).

Evolution

首 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
首 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
首 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

首  

shǒu

head; first; leader, chief; a poem; chief; first (occasion, thing etc); classifier for poems, songs etc

Most common words with 首
Freq.
Word
Meaning

首

head

首先

first (of all)

首次

first

首都

capital (city)

首席

chief (representative, correspondent etc)

Component uses

Meaning component in 3 characters (0 verified)

馗 艏 馘

Sound component in 2 characters (1 verified)

道 艏

Iconic component in 4 characters (4 verified)

县 縣 页 頁

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*l̥uʔ

syuwX

shǒu

head

*l̥uʔ-s

syuwH

shǒu

turn the head towards


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 66.5225% of movies

519th most common character in movies

481st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+9996

Shuowen

“首，同，古文也。巛象髮，謂之鬊，鬊即巛也。”


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