前 (qián) · front, before, ago

Meanings

1 front
2 before
3 ago
4 former

Characters

前

qián

front; before; ago

Examples

HSK 2

前面有一个商店。

Qiánmiàn yǒu yī gè shāngdiàn.

There’s a shop up ahead.

HSK 2

三年前我来过这里。

Sān nián qián wǒ lái guò zhèlǐ.

I came here three years ago.

HSK 2

你往前走。

Nǐ wǎng qián zǒu.

Walk forward.

Tips

grammar

For time, 前 means "ago/before" and goes AFTER the time word: 两天前 (two days ago), 很久以前 (a long time ago). This is the opposite of English word order.

Components

radical

刂 dāo

knife (right-side radical)

The two-stroke knife radical on the right is the indexing radical (Kangxi #18, vertical-knife form of 刀). It was added later by clerical scribes who felt the corrupted boat shape needed reinforcement; same radical anchors 刻, 划, 别, 剩. Carries no meaning of "cutting" here - pure visual indexing.

ideograph

丷 bā

splayed strokes (top marker)

Two short top strokes, leaning apart. Together with the horizontal below they are the modern stylized residue of 止 "foot" that originally sat above the boat in the oracle-bone form. In the simplified glyph they read as a purely positional cap, no longer a recognizable foot.

ideograph

一 yī

horizontal (waistline)

Single horizontal under the splayed top - a structural waistline acting as a positional marker locking the upper marker onto the body. Carries no independent meaning. Historically the heel of the foot pictograph that 丷 once completed; in the modern shape it just frames the bottom half.

semantic

月 yuè

moon-shape (here from boat 舟)

The boxed shape on the bottom-left looks like 月 "moon" but is graphically the corrupted descendant of 舟 "boat". The original 前 pictured a foot in the bow of a boat, hence "going forward". Same boat-corrupted-to-月 pattern shows up in 服, 朝.