Kilo Lingo

(cóng) - from, since, following in Mandarin

cóng

Traditional: 從

Line drawing of 从
Coloured illustration of 从
HSK 2
#106 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

from, since, following

Word origin

从 (traditional 從) depicts one person 人 following behind another, an associative compound conveying 'to follow', extended to the preposition 'from, since'. The simplified form keeps the two-person image.

Origin
ideograph
Root
two 人 (rén, person) figures, one following the other

Stroke order

Stroke order for 从

Examples

I walked over from home.

Starting from now.

He never lies.

He took out the textbook from his school bag.

I have liked drawing since I was little.

从 (cóng) means from, since, following. It is used as a preposition in everyday Mandarin speech.

Appears in 7 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 从.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 3.