wàn ten thousand; myriad; countless; 10000


Used as component in :
Made with 3 strokes.
A much stylized representation of a scorpion, that is the probable original phonetic association
Ancient small seal form Small seal

Different tone

wān (bowl) wán (toy) wǎn (evening)

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Pronunciation

Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License

stroke order for 万
Stroke order for character 万, kindly provided under Wikimedia creative commons license

Proverbs

读万卷书不如行万里路 dú wàn juǎn shū bù rú xíng wàn lǐ lù Learn from practical experience not from books
千山万水 qiān shān wàn shuǐ A long and arduous journey
鹏程万里 péng chéng wàn lǐ Emergence of great talent. The Peng Niao is a mythical bird of huge size and power that could fly huge distance with little effort. Said of someone of immense potential.
万事俱备,只欠东风 wàn shì jù bèi, zhǐ qiàn dōng fēng Lacking one small, but crucial item. It refers to the battle of Red Cliff in the Three Kingdoms period when Cao Cao's great army threatened to overcome his adversaries on the Yangzi River. The clever strategy advocated by Zhuge Liang was to send fire boats into Cao Cao's navy to destroy the boats. Everything was prepared but for ages the wind was in the wrong direction. At last it changed to the east, the fire boats were launched and Cao Cao was defeated.