廿 (niàn) · twenty, 20

Meanings

1 twenty
2 20

Characters

廿

niàn

twenty

Examples

HSK 1

他今年廿岁。

Tā jīnnián niàn suì.

He is twenty this year.

HSK 7-9

廿四史是中国古代正史的总称。

Niàn sì Shǐ shì Zhōngguó gǔdài zhèngshǐ de zǒngchēng.

The Twenty-Four Histories is the collective name for China's official ancient histories.

Tips

history

廿 is a single-character ligature of 二十 ('two-ten') used in classical and lunar-calendar contexts, where it means '20' or 'twentieth.' Most famously in 廿四史 (Twenty-Four Histories) and in lunar dates like 三月廿六 (the 26th of the 3rd lunar month, as in Lin Juemin's 1911 farewell letter 《与妻书》).

memory

Visually it's just 二 ('two') stretched downward and merged with 十 ('ten') at the bottom - a fused 二十. Compare its siblings: 卅 (sà, 30) and 卌 (xì, 40).

Components

radical

廾 gǒng

two hands joined

The 廾 (two clasped hands) is the indexing Kangxi radical for 廿. The graph 廿 originally fused two 十 (ten) graphs side by side to write 'twenty'; the resulting shape was reanalyzed as 廾 with a top bar, placing it in the joined-hands radical family for lookup.

ideograph

一 yī

one; top bar

Horizontal across the top functions as an abstract binding marker that locks the two verticals of 廾 into a single unit, completing the merged-tens silhouette and distinguishing 廿 from a bare 廾. This connecting bar is what marks the graph as the literary numeral 'twenty'.