DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

天問

简天问 · 繁天問

Mandarin · pinyin Tiān wèn

Tianwen, or Questions to Heaven, a long poem by Chu Yuan 屈原 Qū Yuán
Tianwen, a series of interplanetary missions developed by the China National Space Administration starting in 2016, named after the poem

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

天: tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
問: wèn · ask (about), inquire after
问: wèn · ask about, inquire after

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–4 · Tian1 wen4

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

3character links1source reference

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

天問 · find source passages ↗ · 天问 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗