Phonetic Families & Components

Sound Roots & Semantic Radicals Explorer

Decode Chinese characters by their shared sound roots and see how semantic radicals split their meanings across tones.

Popular Roots:

寸

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 4

寸 (cùn)

inch, Chinese inch (unit of length), thumb

View Root Character Page Kangxi #41 (寸) · View Radical

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (寸)

How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:

5 Active Tones

Tone 1cūn

Tone 2xún

Tone 3cǔn

Tone 4cùn

Tone 5

Family Characters (8)

Root: 寸

寸

cùn

HSK 4

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

inch, Chinese inch (unit of length), thumb

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村

cūn

HSK 3

木(tree)

village

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衬

chèn

HSK 3

衤(clothes)

to line (a garment), lining, to contrast with

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寻

xún

HSK 4

彐(pig snout)

to search

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忖

cǔn

Expansion

忄(heart)

to ponder; to speculate

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紂

Expansion

糹(thread)

—

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纣

zhòu

Expansion

纟(silk)

Zhou, pejorative name given posthumously to the last king of the Shang dynasty, King Zhou of Shang 商紂王|商纣王[Shang1 Zhou4 Wang2] (the name refers to a crupper 紂|纣[zhou4], the piece of horse tack most likely to be soiled by the horse); crupper (harness strap running over a horse's hindquarters and under its tail)

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酎

zhòu

Expansion

酉(wine vessel)

strong wine

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