船 is also the simplified spelling of 舩.

船

Mandarin · pinyin chuán

Meanings

  1. boat
  2. vessel
  3. ship
  4. Classifier: 條 tiáo, 艘 sōu, 隻 zhī
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Characters in this entry

船
chuán · ship, boat, vessel
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2 · chuan2

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1character link9same-tone records5source references
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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 Rime · Wiktionary

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

syun4

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

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

character

  1. watercraft; vessel (including ships, boats, sailing ships, hovercrafts; sometimes including submarines) (Classifier: 條/条 m; 艘 m; 隻/只 m c mn mn-t; 架 c)
  2. an object with a shape or function similar to watercraft
  3. (Hong Kong Cantonese, chiefly university slang) scholarship
  4. (obsolete) alcohol cup
  5. (obsolete) to carry by watercraft
  6. (obsolete, dialectal) button
  7. a surname, Chuan

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

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