yīn

Traditional: 因

#1178 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

because, cause, reason

Word origin

A pictograph of a person lying on a mat, the original sense of a mat or foundation, hence a cause or basis. It now means because or reason.

Origin
pictograph
Root
a person on a mat, the underlying cause

Stroke order

Stroke order for 因

Examples

The match was cancelled because of rain.

Take leave because of illness.

Everything happens for a reason.

Closed for a day for certain reasons.

jīng

He moved to Beijing because of work.

因 (yīn) means because, cause, reason. It mostly appears in compounds like 因为 and 原因 rather than alone.

Appears in 4 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 因.

Used in

Add to review queue

Track this word in your spaced-repetition queue and be tested on it at the right interval.

Go to my review queue

This word is part of lesson 24.