yuán

Traditional: 元

#1996 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

yuan (unit of currency), first, primary

Word origin

Originally an ideograph of a person with the head emphasised, meaning head or first; it was later borrowed as the formal name of the basic unit of currency.

Origin
ideograph
Root
儿 (rén, person) with 二 marking the head above

Stroke order

Stroke order for 元

Examples

bǎi

This piece of clothing costs three hundred yuan.

A cup of coffee costs twenty yuan.

bǎichāo

He gave me a one hundred yuan note.

The ticket is fifty yuan per person.

The price of this book is thirty yuan.

元 (yuán) is the formal written name of the basic unit of Chinese currency, the spoken equivalent of which is 块. It also keeps its older meanings of first or primary in words like 元旦 (New Year's Day).

Appears in 1 word

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 元.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 40.