Unicode: U+554F

Pinyin: wèn

Definition

* 有不知道或不明白的事請人解答。 詢~。~答。~題。~鼎(指圖謀奪取政權)。~津。質~。過~。 * 爲表關切而詢問。 慰~。~候。~長~短。 * 審訊,追究。 審~。~案。唯你是~。 * 管,干預。 概不過~。 * 向某人或某方面要東西。 我~他借幾本書。 * 姓

ask (about), inquire after

Structure

Related substructures

Precursors

Oracle Bone Script
c. 1300–1050 BCE (Late Shang)
Inscriptions carved on turtle plastrons and animal bones for divination and record-keeping in the late Shang royal court; the oldest large attested corpus of written Chinese.Wikipedia ->
41_E56841_E569
Bronze Inscriptions
c. 1200–221 BCE (Shang–Zhou; continues into the Warring States)
Inscriptions cast or engraved on ritual bronzes, especially prominent from the Western Zhou onward; a major source for early political, ritual, and social history.Wikipedia ->
31_E53735_E60B
Qin Script
c. 475–206 BCE (Qin, Warring States → Qin dynasty)
Qin-area character forms attested on bamboo/wood slips (e.g., Shuihudi, deposited 217 BCE), overlapping chronologically with the standardization of seal script and the emergence of clerical tendencies.Wikipedia ->
71_E0E771_E0EA71_E0E871_E0E9
Small Seal Script
Standardized 221–206 BCE (Qin); developed earlier in Qin
The standardized seal script promulgated after Qin’s unification, based on earlier Qin seal forms and used as an empire-wide norm.Wikipedia ->
27_554F
Clerical Script
c. 300 BCE–220 CE (emerged late Warring States/Qin; dominant Han)
A practical script that evolved from late Warring States/Qin writing; it matured and became dominant in the Han dynasty, favoring faster, more rectilinear strokes.Wikipedia ->
71_E0E771_E0EA71_E0E891_E73991_E73A91_E73B91_E73E71_E0E991_E73C91_E73D91_E73F91_E740
Transmitted Pre-Qin Forms
Pre-Qin forms (≤221 BCE) / late 2nd century BCE onward (Han → later textual transmission)
Pre-Qin character forms preserved through later textual transmission (often discussed as the 'Old Text' / guwen tradition). Shaped by repeated copying, they can diverge from excavated Warring States materials.Wikipedia ->
81_E7EC81_E7ED81_E7EE81_E7EF81_E7F081_E7F1