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Definition 2025

童

童

Translingual

Stroke order
Japanese stroke order

Han character

童 (radical 117 立+7, 12 strokes, cangjie input 卜廿田土 (YTWG), four-corner 00104, composition ⿱立里)

References

  • KangXi: page 871, character 20
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 25775
  • Dae Jaweon: page 1302, character 12
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 4, page 2711, character 9
  • Unihan data for U+7AE5

Chinese

simp. and trad.
 童

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 童
Oracle bone script Bronze inscriptions Bamboo and silk script Large seal script Small seal script
Characters in the same phonetic series (重) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
撞 *rdoːŋ, *rdoːŋs
幢 *rdoːŋ, *rdoːŋs
橦 *rdoːŋ, *doːŋ, *tjoŋ
噇 *rdoːŋ
𩪘 *rdoːŋ
艟 *rdoːŋs, *tʰjoŋ
憧 *rdoːŋs, *tʰjoŋ
畽 *tʰoːnʔ, *tʰuːnʔ
董 *toːŋʔ
蕫 *toːŋʔ, *doːŋ
箽 *toːŋʔ
懂 *toːŋʔ
湩 *toːŋs, *tuːŋʔ, *toŋs
曈 *tʰoːŋ, *tʰoːŋʔ, *doːŋ
童 *doːŋ
僮 *doːŋ
瞳 *doːŋ
罿 *doːŋ, *tʰjoŋ
犝 *doːŋ
潼 *doːŋ, *tʰjoŋ
穜 *doːŋ, *doŋ
動 *doːŋʔ
慟 *doːŋs
堹 *toŋs
諥 *toŋs
蹱 *tʰoŋ, *tʰoŋs, *tjoŋ
重 *doŋ, *doŋʔ, *doŋs
緟 *doŋ, *doŋs
蝩 *doŋ
褈 *doŋ, *tʰjoŋ
鐘 *tjoŋ, *tjoŋ
鍾 *tjoŋ
籦 *tjoŋ
種 *tjoŋʔ, *tjoŋs
腫 *tjoŋʔ
踵 *tjoŋʔ
歱 *tjoŋʔ
喠 *tjoŋʔ, *tʰjoŋʔ
偅 *tjoŋs
衝 *tʰjoŋ
揰 *tʰjoŋs
尰 *djoŋʔ

Ideogrammic compound (會意)  : A needle 䇂 (abbreviated to 立) going through a slave's eye. In ancient China, slaves were blinded. Compare 民.

It is also possible that it is a phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *doːŋ) : semantic 立 + phonetic 重 ‎(OC *doŋ, *doŋʔ, *doŋs). The bottom component is unrelated to 里.

Original meaning was “boy servant”.

Pronunciation

Rime
Character 童
Reading # 1/1
Initial (聲) 定 (7)
Final (韻) 東 (1)
Tone (調) Level (Ø)
Openness (開合) Open
Division (等) I
Fanqie 徒紅切
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang		 /duŋ/
Pan
Wuyun		 /duŋ/
Shao
Rongfen		 /duŋ/
Edwin
Pulleyblank		 /dəwŋ/
Li
Rong		 /duŋ/
Wang
Li		 /duŋ/
Bernard
Karlgren		 /dʱuŋ/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex		 tóng
Baxter-Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character 童
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin)		 tóng
Middle
Chinese		 ‹ duwng ›
Old
Chinese		 /*[d]ˤoŋ/
English boy

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter-Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character 童
Reading # 1/1
No. 17439
Phonetic
component		 重
Rime
group		 東
Rime
subdivision		 0
Corresponding
MC rime		 同
Old
Chinese		 /*doːŋ/
Notes 說文重省聲

Definitions

童

  1. child
    兒童 / 儿童  ―  értóng  ―  child
    童子  ―  tóngzǐ  ―  boy
    童年  ―  tóngnián  ―  childhood
  2. †young servant; servant boy
    門童 / 门童  ―  méntóng  ―  doorman
    書童 / 书童  ―  shūtóng  ―  page boy
    球童  ―  qiútóng  ―  caddie
  3. †virgin
  4. †bare; exposed
  5. A surname​.

Compounds

Japanese

Kanji

童

(grade 3 “Kyōiku” kanji)

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Readings

Korean

Hanja

童 • ‎(dong) (hangeul 동, revised dong, McCune-Reischauer tong, Yale tong)

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Vietnamese

Han character

童 (đồng)

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