屯
túnzhūn HSK7

village

Original meaning: sprout

Depicts a recently germinated plant. Based on the original meaning "sprout". The meaning later expanded to "gather", "guard", "station", and "village".

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Warring States ~300 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Qin 221-206 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (5 of 18 verified)

顿春纯吨钝沌炖盹饨囤肫邨窀砘純飩鈍頓

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdwon[d]ˤun accumulate
trwintrun difficult

說文解字

《說文》：“屯，難也。象艸木之初生，屯然而難。从中貫一，一，地也。尾曲。《易》曰：‘屯，剛柔始交而難生’。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.65漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)