王

wàng / wáng

verb #1,381

Meanings

1 to reign over (a kingdom)
2 to rule as king

Examples

他想王关中。

Tā xiǎng wàng Guānzhōng.

He wanted to rule over Guanzhong.

行仁政者王。

Xíng rénzhèng zhě wàng.

Those who practice benevolence will reign as king.

Tips

Classical literary verb only. You will encounter 王 as the wàng reading in passages from Mencius, Shiji, and Han-era texts (e.g. 欲王关中 — 'wanted to rule over Guanzhong'). Nobody reads it this way in modern Mandarin; all current compounds use the noun reading wáng.

history

The verb sense 'to reign' derived from the noun via tone shift — a common Old Chinese pattern where a falling tone marks the derived verbal use of a level-tone noun (compare 雨 'rain' → yù 'to rain', 衣 'clothing' → yì 'to wear').

Components

ideograph

王 wàng

to reign as king

Same glyph as the noun reading; tone-derived verb sense. The four-stroke shape (three horizontals + one vertical) is unchanged — only the falling-tone reading wàng signals the verbal use. Indexed under itself as Kangxi #96.

Stroke Order