萬
부수: 艹
획수: 13획
萬 simply means ‘ten thousand’.
萬 = 萬
X = phonetic borrowing
• 萬 depicts a scorpion and was used as a sound loan to represent ‘ten thousand’.
Evolution:
萬 = ’scorpion’ ➔ borrowed use ➔ ’ten thousand’ ➔ ’all’
Mnemonic
Compare 萬 with the historical forms to see how this character depicts a scorpion.
Imagine you are walking in a field 艹 one day and look down to see some insect 虫 hidings under a rock. You get closer and pick up the rock to find that it’s a nest of ten thousand 萬 scorpions.
Vocab
| 萬 | 만 | ten thousand |
| 數萬 | 수만 | tens of thousands |
| 千萬 | 천만 | ten million; being full of |
| 萬歲 | 만세 | 10,000 years; everlasting; “hurrah!” |
| 萬壽無疆 | 만수무강 | longevity |
| 萬物 | 만물 | everything; all things |
| 萬一 | 만일 | if; unexpected; supposing |
| 萬若 | 만약 | if; supposing |
| 萬華鏡 | 만화경 | kaleidoscope |
| 萬年筆 | 만년필 | fountain pen |
Additional notes
Chinese and Japanese simplifications both use 万 for ‘ten thousand’. Some scholars suggest 万 to be a colloquial equivalent of 萬, while others consider them to be separate characters.
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Bibliography
Affiliate links help support uK.
— Grant, B.K. (1982). A Guide To Korean Characters: Reading and Writing Hangul and Hanja, [s.v. 1296]. Seoul: Hollym.
— Henshall, K.G. (1998). A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, [s.v. 392]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.
— Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters, [s.v. 萬].
— Seely, C., Henshall, K.G., & Fan, J. (2016). The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji: Remembering and Understanding the 2,136 Standard Japanese Characters, [s.v. 227]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.