丁
dīngDīngzhēng HSK7

cubes

Original meaning: city wall

In ancient scripts 丁 was written in two different ways: (1) depicting the walls of a city, which is now written as 圍, or (2) depicting a nail, which is now written as 釘.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
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 Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Spring and Autumn ~700 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 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 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

Component uses

Sound (14 of 24 verified)

成正真打顶灯订厅盯亭钉叮汀町酊仃玎疔耵頂訂釘虰眞

Iconic (2)

成正

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

虰

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagarttengtˤeŋ 4th heavenly stem
tengtˤeŋ nail (n.)
treangtˤreŋ sound of beating

說文解字

《說文》：“丁，夏時萬物皆丁實。象形。丁承丙，象人心。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p. 962
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)