長

It carries meanings related to length, growth, seniority, and leadership.

Its origin is a pictograph representing an old person with long hair leaning on a cane. It inspired by ancient people who did not cut their hair, thus having long hair. Over time, the meaning expanded from "aging" to include the temporal sense of "long duration" and spatial sense of "length."

In Korean, Japanese, and Minbei Chinese, the pronunciations have merged, but originally this character is a polyphone—its reading changes based on meaning:

When meaning "long," it is read as 直良切 (pronounced cháng in Standard Mandarin, with a level tone).

When meaning "adult," "elder," or "to grow," it is read as 知丈切 (pronounced zhǎng in Standard Mandarin, with a rising tone).

There are many variant forms, such as 仧 and 镸. The form 镸 is an old form of 長 and is sometimes used as its radical in variant forms.

Traces of this form remain in characters like 套 and 肆. Another old form, 𠔊, exists but should not be confused with the character 兵 (soldier).