瞳 (tóng) · pupil of the eye

Meanings

1 pupil of the eye

Characters

瞳

tóng

pupil of the eye

Examples

HSK 6

猫的瞳在黑暗中会放大，以便看清东西。

Māo de tóng zài hēi'àn zhōng huì fàngdà, yǐbiàn kàn qīng dōngxi.

A cat's pupils dilate in the dark to see things more clearly.

HSK 7-9

她的眼瞳漆黑深邃，像星夜一样。

Tā de yǎn tóng qīhēi shēnsuì, xiàng xīng yè yíyàng.

Her pupils were jet black and deep, like a starry night.

Tips

register

瞳 alone is slightly poetic or literary. In everyday usage, 瞳孔 is the standard medical/everyday term for 'pupil.' 眼瞳 is a poetic variant meaning the same thing.

memory

瞳 uses the eye radical 目 on the left, and 童 (child) on the right - the pupil is the 'child' (tiny dark figure) reflected in the eye, which is exactly where the word's etymology comes from in many cultures.

Components

radical

目 mù

eye

Left eye radical - pictograph of an eye rotated vertical, with the pupil shown as the inner stroke. The indexing radical for 瞳, anchoring it in the vision family alongside 眼 eye, 睛 pupil, 看 look. 瞳 names the specific dark inner circle - the pupil through which light passes.

phonetic

童 tóng

child

Right 童 supplies the sound tóng exactly. There is also a culturally salient image-pun: classical writers liked the visual coincidence of 'child in the eye' for the way a tiny figure of the observer is reflected in another person's pupil - a folk etymology that survives in poetry.