竟
jìng HSK4

actually

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approved by Marcus Ngai · Mar 2, 2026, 07:06 AM · Reviewed by Marcus Ngai on Mar 2, 2026, 07:06 AM

Changed etymology description slightly by adding "Origin uncertain" and "The meaning later shifted to "finish" and "actually"." (Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%AB%9F). Not really confident about my source though, so revert this if I'm wrong. Thanks.

Changed fields: hint

Original meaning: tattoo criminals on the face

Origin uncertain. Possibly depicts a tattoo tool (辛) marking a person's (人) head as punishment for a crime. Based on the original meaning "tattoo criminals on the face", now written as 黥. The meaning later shifted to "finish" and "actually".

Components

辛
辛 Iconic component
xīn laborious

Depicts a chisel-like tool. The modern form looks like 音 but is unrelated.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 辛 than it was in ancient scripts.
人
人 Iconic component
rén, ren person

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkjaengH[k]raŋʔ-s end, in the end

說文解字

《說文》：“竟，樂曲盡為竟。从音，从人。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)