琛 (chēn): precious stone, gem

琛 (chēn) is a Chinese character meaning “precious stone.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 王 (semantic) and 罙 (phonetic). It ranks #4517 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 琛 jade. Its radical form 王 (jade) appears in many related characters such as 现 (xiàn, to appear), 球 (qiú, ball used for playing games (variant of 球)), 环 (huán, ring).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. precious stone
  2. gem

Etymology & Origin

琛

pictophoneticjade

Decomposition: ⿰王罙 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Practice writing 琛 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
亚琛proper-nounyà chēnAachen, city in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
钱其琛qián qí chēnQian Qichen (1928-2017), former Chinese vice premier
2
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

琛 appears in 2 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Example Sentences

爱范儿Sep 2026

陈世琛 师傅开慢点我晕车。

chén shì chēn shī fù kāi màn diǎn wǒ yūn chē .

Master Chen Shichen, please drive a little slower—I get carsick.

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

此役北控男篮派出了贾尔斯、邹雨宸、金鑫、里勒和罗汉琛组成的双外援首发阵容。

cǐ yì běi kòng nán lán pài chū le gǔ ěr sī , zōu yǔ 宸 , jīn xīn , lǐ lè hé luó hàn chēn zǔ chéng de shuāng wài yuán shǒu fā zhèn róng .

In this game, the Beijing Control men’s basketball team fielded a starting lineup featuring two foreign players: Giles, Zou Yuchen, Jin Xin, Liller, and Luo Hanchen.

爱范儿Sep 2026

孔若琛最初以静态摄影师的身份参加 vivo 影像加大赛。

kǒng ruò chēn zuì chū yǐ jìng tài shè yǐng shī de shēn fèn cān jiā v i v o yǐng xiàng jiā dà sài .

Kong Ruochen initially participated in the vivo Imaging Grand Prix as a still photographer.

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

选手胡琛昊完赛后双手举起大拇指。

xuǎn shǒu hú chēn 昊 wán sài hòu shuāng shǒu jǔ qǐ dà mǔ zhǐ .

After finishing the race, athlete Hu Chenhao gave a thumbs-up with both hands.

中国新闻网·文化Aug 2026

主演由青年舞蹈家王金格、黄琛迪担纲。

zhǔ yǎn yóu qīng nián wǔ dǎo jiā wáng jīn gé , huáng chēn dí dān gāng .

The lead roles are played by young dancers Wang Jinge and Huang Chendi.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 王 (jade) component

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 琛 (chēn) mean in Chinese?
琛 (chēn) primarily means "precious stone." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #4517 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 琛 have?
琛 is written with 12 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 琛?
The radical associated with 琛 is 王 (jade). This radical appears in many characters related to jade.
What are the components of 琛?
琛 is composed of: 王 (semantic), 罙 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰王罙 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 琛?
Common words with 琛 include: 亚琛 (yà chēn, "Aachen, city in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany"); 钱其琛 (qián qí chēn, "Qian Qichen (1928-2017), former Chinese vice premier"). There are over 2 compound words containing this character.
Is 琛 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 琛 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 琛 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.