新 (xīn) means "new" with 13 strokes, radical 斤 (axe), HSK 1 on the new exam.
Pronunciation
Meaning
Primary: new
Etymology
Oracle-bone origin
新 is attested in oracle-bone script as a compound showing 辛 (a tattooing knife or awl, top right) and 木 (tree, bottom left), with 斤 (axe) added by the bronze-script period on the right. The original meaning was concrete: cutting firewood with an axe, or the freshly-cut wood itself. The 辛 element is phonetic as well as partly semantic, since 辛 and 新 were close in Old Chinese pronunciation.
Form evolution
In bronze and seal script the three components 辛, 木, and 斤 are clearly separated. Clerical script merges 辛 and 木 into the compact left-side stack 亲 and regularises 斤 on the right. The modern 楷书 form 新 has thirteen strokes and preserves this left-right division, though the original meaning of the components is no longer transparent.
How the meaning evolved
The original sense 'freshly cut wood' generalised to 'fresh' and then to 'new' in a broad sense; a shift already complete by the time of the earliest classical texts. The 'firewood' sense was later written with a separate character 薪, leaving 新 to carry only the abstract meaning. Modern 新 covers 'new', 'recent', 'fresh', and 'renewed' in compounds like 新年, 新闻, and 重新.
Cultural note
The split between 新 (new) and 薪 (firewood) is a clean example of a single oracle-bone graph generating two modern characters, with the concrete sense pushed onto the newer graph and the abstract sense retained by the older one. The Confucian phrase 苟日新, 日日新, 又日新 from the 大学 ('if you renew yourself one day, renew daily, renew again') is the source of countless modern brand names and slogans.
Mnemonic
Close relatives cut with an axe — fresh start, new
Decomposition
Breaking a character into its components makes it far easier to recall. Each component above links to its own detail page.
Basic info
| Pinyin | xīn |
| Meanings | new |
| Stroke count | 13 strokes |
| Radical | 斤 (#69: axe) |
| New HSK exam | Recognise at HSK 1 |
| Frequency | #189 most common |
Example sentences
Words containing 新
Related characters
Similar meaning (abstract)
On the new HSK 1 exam
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Frequently Asked Questions
Reviewed by RJ Murray, Founder, HSK Lord.