琴

See also: 琹 and 珡

Translingual

Etymology

Jade pendants with the phonetic jin below

Han character

琴 (radical 96 玉+8, 12 strokes, cangjie input 一土人戈弓 (MGOIN), four-corner 1120₇, composition ⿱玨今)

1. guqin (Chinese seven-stringed zither, historical and original usage)
2. piano (modern usage, most commonly used meaning)
3. zither
4. string instrument (can apply to zithers or lutes)
5. musical instrument (for example, 手风琴 [accordion])

References

• KangXi: page 735, character 11
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 21079
• Dae Jaweon: page 1147, character 8
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 2, page 1119, character 7
• Unihan data for U+7434

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Cantonese

Hanzi

琴 (Jyutping kam4, Yale kam4)

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Japanese

Wikipedia

Noun

琴 (hiragana こと, romaji koto)

1. Japanese zither/harp; koto.

Kanji

琴

(common “Jōyō” kanji)

Readings

• On: きん (kin)
• Kun: こと (koto)

Compounds

• 琴線
• 琴柱
• 琴爪
• 琴曲
• 竪琴
• 大正琴
• 洋琴
• 木琴

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Korean

Hanja

琴 (geum) (hangeul [[금]], revised geum, McCune-Reischauer kŭm, Yale kum)

Compounds

• 伽倻琴 (가야금, gayageum, kayagŭm)

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Mandarin

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

琴 (traditional and simplified, Pinyin qín)

1. zither
2. a stringed instrument

Derived terms

• 布祖基琴 (buzujiqin)
• 电子琴 (dianziqin)
• 独弦琴 (duxianqin)
• 风琴 (fengqin)
• 钢片琴 (gangpianqin)
• trad. 鋼琴, simpl. 钢琴 (gangqin)
• 古琴 (guqin)
• 胡琴 (huqin)
• 口琴 (kouqin)
• 雷琴 (leiqin)
• 六角琴 (liujiaoqin)
• 柳琴 (liuqin)
• 马林巴琴 (malinba qin)
• 梅花琴 (meihuaqin)
• 手风琴 (shoufengqin)
• 提琴 (tiqin)
• 奚琴 (xiqin)
• trad. 揚琴, simpl. 扬琴 (yangqin)
• 鐘琴 (zhongqin)
• 琴瑟
• trad. 琴絃, simpl. 琴弦

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Middle Chinese

Han character

琴 (*ghyim)

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Min Nan

Noun

琴 (traditional and simplified, POJ khîm (khim⁵))

1. zither

Descendants

• Burmese: ခင် (khìn) (borrowed)

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Vietnamese

Han character

琴 (cầm)