大

dà
adjective HSK 1 #99

Meanings

  1. 1 big
  2. 2 large
  3. 3 great
  4. 4 old (age)

Characters

Person with arms stretched wide - something big

Examples

HSK 1
Zhège fángjiān hěn dà.
This room is very big.
HSK 1
Nǐ duō dà le?
How old are you?
HSK 1
Zhè jiàn yīfu tài dà le, yǒu xiǎo yìdiǎn de ma?
This piece of clothing is too big. Do you have a smaller one?

Tips

memory
大 is a pictograph of a person (人) with arms stretched wide, showing something big.
mistakes
The character is dà almost everywhere, but one common word breaks the pattern: 大夫, doctor, where 大 is read dài. The same two characters read dàfū are a rank of official in ancient China, so the reading picks the meaning.

Components

ideograph
一 yī
outstretched arms
Top horizontal - the arms stretched wide, gesturing 'this big'.
semantic
人 rén
person
Person figure underneath - body and legs viewed from the front. Strict etymology says 大 is one pictograph of a frontal-stance person, but visually it splits cleanly into 一 + 人.

Radical

Big Kangxi #37

The 大 radical, a pictograph of a person with arms outstretched. Indexes characters about people, scale, or magnitude: 天, 太, 央, 夫, 头, 奇, 套, 奖. Common as the top component but a frequent semantic anchor wherever it appears.

Used in

View all 40 →
Showing 6 of 40 · default form 大
太 tài
too (much) · very
天 tiān
day · sky
买 mǎi
to buy · to purchase
头 tóu
head · hair style
头 tou
toneless noun suffix · forms diminutives
套 tào
set; suite · measure word for sets of things

Stroke Order

大 dà