头 (tóu): head

Meanings

1 head
2 hair style
3 top
4 end
5 chief; boss
6 first; leading
7 classifier for livestock

Characters

头

tóu

head; top; chief

Examples

HSK 2

我头疼。

Wǒ tóuténg.

I have a headache.

HSK 3

从头开始。

Cóng tóu kāishǐ.

Start over from the beginning.

HSK 7-9

农夫养了三头牛。

Nóngfū yǎng le sān tóu niú.

The farmer raised three head of cattle.

Tips

usage

tóu 头 stretches from the literal head - 头发 (hair), 头疼 (headache) - to anything at the top or front: 山头 (mountaintop), 街头 (street corner), 头条 (headline). It also names the chief - 头目 (ringleader), 工头 (foreman) - and as a measure word counts livestock: 一头牛 (one cow), 一头猪 (one pig).

mistakes

Two readings, same character. Full-tone 头 is the noun (head, top, chief, classifier). Toneless tou is a suffix that turns a root into a noun: 木头 (wood), 石头 (stone), 里头 (inside). Always say 头 full-tone when it carries its own meaning; let it go toneless only when it is a suffix attached to a meaning-bearing root.

Components

radical

大 dà

big; person with outstretched arms

Bottom 大 is the indexing radical of this simplified form. Originally 頭 was 豆+頁 (vessel-on-leaf phonetic plus head); the 1956 reform collapsed the body to 大 and the dictionary now files 头 under 大 rather than the older 頁 head radical.

ideograph

⺀ diǎn

two-dot marker; pair of small ticks

Twin top dots are abstract markers indicating prominence or top-of-something. They are the simplified residue of the much fuller traditional 頭 top (豆), now compressed to two stylised ticks that sit above the head-shape below.