zhàng HSK4

unit of length ~ 3 meters

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approved by Peter Olson · Mar 7, 2026, 06:10 AM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Mar 7, 2026, 06:10 AM

it depicts a hand, so it's iconic

Changed fields: components

Depicts 10 () hand-lengths (): (~3 meters) is a traditional Chinese unit of length equal to 10 (~0.3 meters). The current use of as "husband" is a phonetic loan.

Components

Meaning component
Iconic component
hand

Depicts a hand.

Character Evolution

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
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdrjangX[d]raŋʔ ten feet

說文解字

十尺也。从又持十。

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica