秊
nián

year

Variant form of 年. Pictograph of a person (人) harvesting grain (禾). The harvest season is a yearly event. 人 also represents the sound. 人 was later reanalyzed as pure sound component 千.

Components

禾
禾 Iconic component
hé grain stalk
千
千 Sound component
qiān thousand

The 人 component was later reanalyzed as 千, which also works as the sound component.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
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
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangniːŋ

說文解字

《說文》：“年，穀孰也。从禾，千聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.574-575漢語多功能字庫李学勤《字源》p.638-639
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)