万wàn

万

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简体

Simplified Chinese

万 (wàn, "ten thousand") appears identical in simplified and traditional scripts, yet its ancient ancestor bore no numerical meaning at all — it was a pictograph of a scorpion, its venomous tail curled unmistakably overhead. Over millennia, the original insect form was abstracted beyond recognition, leaving only a phonetic ghost that the language borrowed to signify countless multitudes.

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Shuowen

万. The oracle bone form is a striking pictograph of a scorpion—its oval body, curled tail, and poisonous stinger captured in a single glyph. It is written this way because the scorpion was once a feared creature in ancient China, and its image was borrowed as a phonetic symbol for the number ten thousand, eventually losing its original pictorial meaning.

Pinyin

wàn· HSK 2

万wàn

Character evolution

Shuowen

Pinyin