秊
nián

year

← Back to history
approved by Hsmq · Aug 1, 2026, 12:53 PM · Reviewed by Marcus Ngai on Aug 1, 2026, 04:37 PM

人 also works as a sound component

Changed fields: hint, components, customSources

Variant form of 年. Pictograph of a person (人) harvesting grain (禾). The harvest season is a yearly event. 人 also represents the sound.

Components

禾
禾 Iconic component
人
人 SoundIconic component
Change in sound
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 人 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

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangniːŋ

說文解字

《說文》:“年,穀孰也。从禾,千聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.574-575漢語多功能字庫李学勤《字源》p.638-639
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica