头tóu

头

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Simplified · Today

繁体

Traditional Chinese

頭 (tóu, "head") in its traditional form pairs the radical 頁—itself an ancient pictograph of a head atop a body—with 豆 as the phonetic component, a pairing that simplified to 头 while retaining that top-heavy silhouette. It appears in 头发 (hair), 码头 (dock), and 头脑 (mind), where the sense of a leading end or crown persists across each compound.

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Shuowen

Head. In oracle bone script, the character depicted a human head with hair, a pictograph representing the upper part of the body. The original meaning is "head"; it is written this way because it directly portrays the head shape, and from this developed the extended meanings of "first" or "leader."

Pinyin

tóu· HSK 1

头tóu

Character evolution

Shuowen

Pinyin