祯 (zhēn): auspicious, lucky

祯 (zhēn) is a Chinese character meaning “auspicious.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 礻 (semantic) and 贞 (phonetic). It ranks #4667 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 祯 spirit. Its radical form 礻 (spirit) appears in many related characters such as 票 (piào, ticket), 社 (shè, (bound form) society), 禁 (jìn, to prohibit).

Spoken pronunciation
Radical: 礻 spirit10 strokesFrequency #4667礻 semantic贞 phonetic

Definitions

  1. auspicious
  2. lucky

Etymology & Origin

祯

pictophoneticspirit

Decomposition: ⿰礻贞 (layout: left-right)

Components:礻semantic贞phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
崇祯proper-nounchóng zhēnChongzhen, reign name of last Ming emperor (1628-1644)
徐祯卿xú zhēn qīngXu Zhenqing (1479-1511), Ming writer, one of Four great southern talents of the Ming 江南四大才子
2
Total compounds
0
As first character
50
As last character
50
As middle character

祯 appears in 2 compound words: 0 as the first character, 50 as the last, and 50 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 礻 (spirit) component

神shén福fú礼lǐ祖zǔ祸huò祥xiáng祈qí祷dǎo禄lù祠cí

Related Characters

票piào社shè禁jìn示shì祝zhù视shì礼lǐ福fú神shén祥xiáng

Homophones — Characters pronounced zhēn

侦zhēn帧zhēn桢zhēn

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 祯 (zhēn) mean in Chinese?
祯 (zhēn) primarily means "auspicious." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #4667 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 祯 have?
祯 is written with 10 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 祯?
The radical associated with 祯 is 礻 (spirit). This radical appears in many characters related to spirit.
What are the components of 祯?
祯 is composed of: 礻 (semantic), 贞 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰礻贞 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 祯?
Common words with 祯 include: 崇祯 (chóng zhēn, "Chongzhen, reign name of last Ming emperor (1628-1644)"); 徐祯卿 (xú zhēn qīng, "Xu Zhenqing (1479-1511), Ming writer, one of Four great southern talents of the Ming 江南四大才子"). There are over 2 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 祯 (zhēn)?
Several characters share the pronunciation zhēn: 侦 (to scout), 帧 (frame), 桢 ((old) privet (genus Ligustrum)). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 祯 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 祯 and the traditional form is 禎.

Practice writing 祯 with real-time feedback

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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.