栈 (zhàn) · wooden pen for livestock

Meanings

1 wooden pen for livestock
2 plank walkway on a cliff face
3 inn; warehouse
4 stack (computing)

Characters

栈

zhàn

pen; plank walkway; warehouse; stack

Examples

HSK 5

在计算机科学中，栈是一种先进后出的数据结构。

Zài jìsuànjī kēxué zhōng, zhàn shì yī zhǒng xiānjìn hòu chū de shùjù jiégòu.

In computer science, a stack is a last-in, first-out data structure.

HSK 7-9

这段古道旁有几处废弃的栈道遗迹。

Zhè duàn gǔ dào páng yǒu jǐ chù fèiqì de zhàn dào yíjì.

There are a few ruins of ancient plank walkways along this old road.

Tips

usage

栈 has several meanings across different domains: in classical Chinese it refers to a cliffside plank road (栈道) or animal pen; in modern usage it commonly appears as a computing term (堆栈, call stack).

Components

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

木 is the indexing tree-and-wood radical. Here it tags 栈 as a wooden structure word - originally a wooden plank-road clinging to a cliff (栈道), then by extension a warehouse or inn made of timber. Sister chars 板 (plank), 桥 (bridge), 楼 (tower) share the building-from-wood theme.

phonetic

戋 jiān

small; trivial; spear

戋 (jiān) supplies the sound - initial preserved, rime drifted with tone shift to fourth (zhàn via dialect routes). Same phonetic powers 浅 (shallow), 钱 (money), 残 (remnant), 贱 (cheap) - a family unified by the sense of small or thin slivers, fitting the narrow plank-roads that 栈 originally named.