王

Mandarin · pinyin wáng#

Meanings · wáng

  1. king or monarch
  2. best or strongest of its type
  3. grand
  4. great
Mandarin · pinyin wàng#

Meanings · wàng

  1. (literary) (of a monarch) to reign over (a kingdom)
Mandarin · pinyin Wáng#

Meanings · Wáng

  1. surname Wang
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Characters in this entry

王
wáng · king, ruler; royal; surname
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2 · wang2

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 12 senses · 2 Cantonese readings

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

wong4 · wong6

Cantonese word readings for 王. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

character · Etymology 1

  1. king; monarch
  2. duke; prince
  3. best or strongest of its kind
  4. chief; head; ringleader
  5. (chess) king
  6. (Sichuanese, Northern Min, Hokkien, xiangqi) general; marshal; king
  7. (graph theory) king (a vertex in a directed graph which can reach every other vertex via a path with a length of at most 2)
  8. (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) grand; great
  9. (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese, of feudal monarchs) to see the emperor
  10. a surname, Wang, Wong, Ong, and Heng

character · Etymology 2

  1. (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) to reign; to rule, to be a king
  2. (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) alternative form of 旺 (wàng, “flourishing; prosperous”)

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

王 · wang2 · wang4 · Wang2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source lines 73,029, 73,030, 73,028
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source records王 王 [wang2] /king or monarch/best or strongest of its type/grand/great/王 王 [wang4] /(literary) (of a monarch) to reign over (a kingdom)/王 王 [Wang2] /surname Wang/