年 | Chinese Character for Year

年 is the character for “Year”. It is made out of 6 strokes.

Chinese Character	Simplified Version	Bopomofo	Pinyin
年	年	ㄋㄧㄢˊ	nián

Definition

Year

Historical Origins

The Chinese character 年, meaning “year,” has its origins in the oracle bone script and early bronze inscriptions. Its earliest form was 秂, an ideogrammic compound and phono-semantic compound. The character combined the semantic component 禾 (“grain” or “wheat”) with the phonetic component 人 (“person”). This depicted a person carrying wheat on their back, symbolizing the act of harvesting—a key event in the agricultural cycle that marked the passage of a year.

During the Western Zhou period, an additional stroke was added to 人, forming 千, which continued to serve as the phonetic element, evolving into the variant 秊. Over time, as the clerical script developed, the character underwent further transformation through libian (隸變), resulting in the modern form 年 that we use today. Its connection to agriculture reflects its roots in an agrarian society, where the year was measured by the cycle of harvests.

Vocabulary with the Character 年

Chinese	Bopomofo	Pinyin	English
年輕	ㄋㄧㄢˊ ㄑㄧㄥ	niánqīng	Young
青年	ㄑㄧㄥ ㄋㄧㄢˊ	qīngnián	Youth; young people
少年	ㄕㄠˇ ㄋㄧㄢˊ	shàonián	Youth; teenager
中年	ㄓㄨㄥ ㄋㄧㄢˊ	zhōngnián	Middle age
老年	ㄌㄠˇ ㄋㄧㄢˊ	lǎonián	Old age; elderly
年齡	ㄋㄧㄢˊ ㄌㄧㄥˊ	niánlíng	Age
年度	ㄋㄧㄢˊ ㄉㄨˋ	niándù	Annual; yearly