篆 (zhuàn): seal (of office), seal script (a calligraphic style)
篆 (zhuàn) is a Chinese character meaning “seal (of office).” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of ⺮ (semantic) and 彖 (phonetic). It ranks #9999 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).
Etymologically derived, 篆 bamboo. Its radical form 竹 (bamboo) appears in many related characters such as 第 (dì, (prefix indicating ordinal number, as in 第六 "sixth")), 等 (děng, to wait for), 笑 (xiào, to laugh).
Definitions
- seal (of office)
- seal script (a calligraphic style)
Etymology & Origin
Stroke Order
Practice writing 篆 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.
Words & Compounds
Common Compounds
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 大篆noun | dà zhuàn | the great seal |
| 小篆noun | xiǎo zhuàn | the small or lesser seal, the form of Chinese character standardized by the Qin dynasty |
| 篆工 | zhuàn gōng | craftsman engaged in carving characters |
| 篆体 | zhuàn tǐ | see 篆書|篆书 |
| 篆书noun | zhuàn shū | seal script (Chinese calligraphic style) |
| 篆刻verb | zhuàn kè | to carve a seal |
| 雕虫篆刻 | diāo chóng zhuàn kè | literary trifles |
| 鸟篆 | niǎo zhuàn | bird characters (a decorated form of the Great Seal) |
| 秦篆noun | qín zhuàn | seal script as unified by the Qin dynasty |
篆 appears in 9 compound words: 44 as the first character, 44 as the last, and 11 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.
Idioms & Chengyu (1)
Example Sentences
篆字在日常生活中使用频率较低。
zhuàn zì zài rì cháng shēng huó zhōng shǐ yòng pín lǜ jiào dī .
Seal script is not used very often in everyday life.
真正让姚伟荣的篆刻走出传统汉字边界的，是四十余种少数民族文字“和平”系列篆刻的创作。
zhēn zhèng ràng 姚 wěi róng de zhuàn kè zǒu chū chuán tǒng hàn zì biān jiè de , shì sì shí yú zhǒng shǎo shǔ mín zú wén zì hé píng xì liè zhuàn kè de chuàng zuò .
What truly propelled Yao Weirong’s seal carving beyond the boundaries of traditional Chinese characters was the creation of his “Peace” series of seal carvings featuring more than 40 ethnic minority scripts.
他仔细辨认，不是岩画，竟是一面篆字石刻，起首第一个字，赫然是篆书“皇”字。
tā zǐ xì biàn rèn , bù shì yán huà , jìng shì yī miàn zhuàn zì shí kè , qǐ shǒu dì yī gè zì , hè rán shì zhuàn shū huáng zì .
He looked closely and realized it wasn’t a rock painting after all, but a stone inscription in seal script; the very first character was, to his surprise, the seal script character for “Emperor.”
半夏(左三)带领来昆明参加第三届国际农业生物多样性大会的外宾打卡篆新。
bàn xià ( zuǒ sān ) dài lǐng lái kūn míng cān jiā dì sān jiè guó jì nóng yè shēng wù duō yàng xìng dà huì de wài bīn dǎ kǎ zhuàn xīn .
Banxia (third from the left) led foreign guests visiting Kunming for the Third International Conference on Agricultural Biodiversity on a tour of Zuanxin.
徐三庚诞辰200周年书法篆刻特展在杭州启幕
xú sān 庚 dàn chén 2 0 0 zhōu nián shū fǎ zhuàn kè tè zhǎn zài háng zhōu qǐ mù
Special Exhibition of Calligraphy and Seal Carving Marking the 200th Anniversary of Xu Sange’s Birth Opens in Hangzhou
Character Family
Semantic Family — Characters sharing the ⺮ (bamboo) component
Frequently Asked Questions
What does 篆 (zhuàn) mean in Chinese?
What's the difference between 篆 and 缘?
How many strokes does 篆 have?
What is the radical of 篆?
What are the components of 篆?
What are common words containing 篆?
Is 篆 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
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