王

wàng / wáng

verb #1,381

Meanings

1 to reign over (a kingdom)
2 to rule as king

Examples

HSK 3

他想王关中。

Tā xiǎng wàng Guānzhōng.

He wanted to rule over Guanzhong.

HSK 7-9

行仁政者王。

Xíng rénzhèng zhě wàng.

Those who practice benevolence will reign as king.

Tips

Classical literary verb only. You will encounter 王 as the wàng reading in passages from Mencius, Shiji, and Han-era texts (e.g. 欲王关中 - 'wanted to rule over Guanzhong'). Nobody reads it this way in modern Mandarin; all current compounds use the noun reading wáng.

history

The verb sense 'to reign' derived from the noun via tone shift - a common Old Chinese pattern where a falling tone marks the derived verbal use of a level-tone noun (compare 雨 'rain' → yù 'to rain', 衣 'clothing' → yì 'to wear').

Components

ideograph

王 wàng

to reign as king

Same glyph as the noun reading; tone-derived verb sense. The four-stroke shape (three horizontals + one vertical) is unchanged - only the falling-tone reading wàng signals the verbal use. Indexed under itself as Kangxi #96.

Stroke Order