东dōng

东

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Simplified · Today

繁体

Traditional Chinese

東 (dōng, "east") evolved from an ancient pictograph of a bundle tied in the middle — a sack of goods — which was later borrowed for its phonetic value to mean "where the sun rises." As a radical, it appears in characters like 凍 (frozen), 棟 (ridgepole), and 陳 (to arrange), though its original bundle shape is now barely visible in modern forms.

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Shuowen

East. The oracle bone form depicts a bundle or sack tied in the middle, representing something bound or gathered. Later evolution transformed this into a character combining 木 (tree) on either side with 十 (ten) in the center, suggesting the sun rising between trees—the direction from which the morning light comes.

Pinyin

dōng· HSK 1

东dōng

Character evolution

Shuowen

Pinyin