长 (zhǎng): to grow; to develop

Meanings

1 to grow; to develop
2 older; senior; elder
3 chief; head; leader

Characters

长

zhǎng

to grow; to develop

Examples

他长大了。

Tā zhǎngdà le.

He has grown up.

校长很严格。

Xiàozhǎng hěn yángé.

The principal is very strict.

我是家里的长子。

Wǒ shì jiālǐ de zhǎngzǐ.

I am the eldest son in the family.

Tips

usage

In compounds about people 长 means "head/leader": 校长 (principal), 队长 (team captain), 班长 (class monitor), 厂长 (factory director). In verbs about growth: 长大 (grow up), 生长 (to grow), 成长 (to develop).

mistakes

长 with pinyin zhǎng is a separate word from 长 cháng (long). They share the same character but different readings and meanings. Context — usually the surrounding compound — picks which.

Components

ideograph

长 zhǎng

grow; elder; chief

Simplified from traditional 長 (8 strokes) in the 1956 reform — 長 originally pictured an elder with long flowing hair leaning on a walking stick. The zhǎng reading takes the aging meaning of that image: from "old" came "eldest", "chief", "to grow up". Modern 4-stroke 长 is a stylised cursive contraction of that silhouette; not decomposable today. The sister reading cháng ("long") keeps the literal length-of-hair sense.

Radical

Long Kangxi #168

The 'long/grow' radical. Originally a pictograph of a long-haired figure — long hair signaling age, then 'elder', then 'long' generally. Simplified from 8-stroke 長 to 4-stroke 长. Indexes very few characters (套 'set/cover' is filed here in some schemes). Important mostly as a high-frequency free morpheme covering both spatial 'long' and verbal 'grow up'.