Character: 点 (diǎn) dot

点 (diǎn) means dot, the character is visualized as fire burning a turtle shell with some ashes at the bottom

Fire burning a turtle shell and ashes

Pinyin diǎn
Meaning dot; point; drop; speck; o’clock; to draw a dot; to order (food in a restaurant); to hint; to light; to ignite
Radical 灬（火） 繁體字 點
Two writing patterns can be found in the character 点 (diǎn) dot: 占, highlighted in red; and 灬, highlighted in yellow 占
灬

writing patterns, not components

Chinese character phono-semantic compoundcategory: phono-semantic compound

Chinese character up down structurestructure: up down

9stroke count

HSK 1

Stroke order of the Chinese character 点 (diǎn) dot. There are 9 strokes, and the character is written from top to bottom

Breakdown

点 (diǎn) “dot” is a phono-semantic compound character, and it has two parts. The one on top is 占 (zhān) “to divine,” indicating the pronunciation. The other one at the bottom is 灬, a variant of 火 (huǒ) “fire.” It stands for the tiny solid remains (dots) of a fire, namely ashes.

diǎn
点
dot		 zhān
占
to divine		 tiē
贴
to stick		 zhān
粘
to glue

灬
fire		 shù
庶
commoner		 gāo
羔
lamb

Used as a morpheme/word

点 (diǎn) mainly refers to something tiny, such as a dot or point. It has extended to mean “o’clock,” as there are twelves points on a clock. 点 (diǎn) is also used to indicate something particular as a morpheme.

Wordlist

How to pronounce

This character sounds like “dee end” spoken in one syllable but without the final d.

3rd Pinyin Yale IPA
Initial d- d [t]
Final -ian yan [ɪɛn]

Chinese character practice sheet

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