前
qián HSK1

in front

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approved by Peter Olson · Jun 2, 2022, 01:22 PM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Jun 2, 2022, 01:22 PM

more concise explanation while trying to preserve all of the details

Changed fields: hint, components, customSources

Original meaning: cut

Phonosemantic compound. 歬 represents the sound, and 刂 represents the meaning. Based on the original meaning "cut", now written as 剪. The current meaning "in front" is a phonetic loan.

Components

歬
歬 Sound component
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 歬 than it was in ancient scripts.
刂
刂 Meaning component
Change in meaning
刂 hints at the original meaning of 前, "cut", which is no longer the most common meaning of 前 in modern Mandarin.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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 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
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartdzen[dz]ˤen
(~ *m-dzˤen)
before

說文解字

《說文》:“歬,不行而進謂之歬。从止在舟上。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica