旦

dàn
noun #20,352

Meanings

  1. 1 dawn
  2. 2 daybreak
  3. 3 day

Examples

HSK 4
Yuándàn wǒmen quánjiā qù kàn le diànyǐng.
On New Year's Day, our whole family went to see a movie.
HSK 7-9
Wèile wánchéng rènwu, tāmen tōngxiāo-dádàn de gōngzuò.
To finish the task, they worked all night until dawn.

Tips

usage
日 (sun) above 一 (horizon) - the sun rising at dawn.

Components

radical
日 rì
sun; day
Top sun radical - pictograph of the sun, with the inner stroke marking the disc to distinguish it from a plain circle. The indexing radical here, naturally enough: 旦 means dawn, the moment when the sun first appears. The radical anchors 旦 in the timekeeping family alongside 早 early, 晚 late, 明 bright, 晨 morning.
ideograph
一 yī
one; horizon line
Abstract positional marker: the bottom horizontal acts as a horizon line beneath the 日 sun above, fixing the exact instant of sunrise as it lifts clear of the earth. Not the numeral one - a pure ideographic indicator. Among the most compact ideographs in the script.

Stroke Order

旦 dàn