场 (cháng): threshing floor

Meanings

1 threshing floor
2 classifier for events / happenings (a spell, an episode, a bout — of rain, snow, illness, disturbance)

Characters

场

cháng

threshing floor

Examples

昨天下了一场大雨。

Zuótiān xià le yī cháng dà yǔ.

There was a heavy downpour yesterday.

他生了一场大病，瘦了很多。

Tā shēng le yī cháng dàbìng, shòu le hěnduō.

He went through a serious illness and lost a lot of weight.

村里刚经历了一场风波。

Cūn lǐ gāng jīnglì le yī cháng fēngbō.

The village has just been through a stretch of turmoil.

Tips

grammar

cháng counts an event that happens TO someone, not one you stage or attend. Use it with weather, illness, fights, dreams, scares — 一场雨, 一场雪, 一场大病, 一场风波, 一场噩梦. Tickets, scores, schedules → chǎng instead.

memory

Both readings trace back to the same threshing-floor image. A scheduled performance on the cleared ground is chǎng. The weather that beats down on that ground — the rain, the storm, the spell of bad luck — is cháng. The flatter, unstressed tone fits the unscheduled event.

Components

radical

土 tǔ

earth; soil

Left-side 土 is the earth radical and indexing component. 场 originally named a flat patch of cleared earth used for threshing grain in the sun — the 'open ground' core that grew into modern 'site, venue, field, scene'. Same family as 地, 坡, 城, 堂.

phonetic

勿 wù

do not; banner-shape

Right side is a 3-stroke contraction of 昜 (sun rising), the original phonetic in traditional 場. The simplified shape resembles 勿 but is graphic residue, not standalone 'do not'. Pure phonetic stand-in for the yáng→cháng / chǎng link, shared with sister chars 扬 and 杨.