年
nián HSK1

year

← Back to history
approved by Marcus Ngai · Aug 12, 2026, 02:40 AM · Reviewed by Marcus Ngai on Aug 12, 2026, 02:40 AM

tweaking it again

Changed fields: hint

Original meaning: harvest

Depicts a person (人) harvesting grain (禾) during harvest season, which occurred yearly. 人 also represented the sound, but was later reanalyzed as the sound component 千.

Components

禾
禾 Iconic component
hé grain stalk
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 禾 than it was in ancient scripts.
千
千 Sound component
qiān thousand
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 千 than it was in ancient scripts.

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

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartnenC.nˤi[ŋ] harvest; year

說文解字

《說文》：“年，穀孰也。从禾，千聲。”

Sources

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