奠
diàn HSK7

pay respect

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approved by Prismcool · Aug 21, 2026, 07:53 AM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Aug 21, 2026, 07:53 AM

changed explanation

Changed fields: hint, components, customSources

Pictograph of a container of wine (酋) placed on the ground as an offering for a sacrificial or memorial ceremony.

Components

酋
酋 Iconic component

Depicts a container of wine.

一
一 Iconic component

Depicts the ground. Modern form looks like unrelated 大.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 一 than it was in ancient scripts.

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 Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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 Shuowen ~100 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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartdenHN-tˤe[n]-s be fixed (v.i.)
denHm-tˤe[n]-s set forth (v.t.)

說文解字

《說文》:“奠,置祭也。从酋,酋,酒也。下其丌也。《禮》有奠祭者。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.380
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica