乘 chéng to ride; to mount; to make use of

Made up of [禾 hé grain radical 115, 北 běi north ]
Made with 10 strokes.
The origin of this pictogram is of a person climbing a tree - only the legs are shown

Related characters

Also uses 禾 hé component: 矮 ǎi (low) 稿 gǎo (manuscript) ; 和 hé (together) ; 季 jì (season) ; 利 lì (sharp) ; 秋 qiú (autumn) ; 税 shuì (taxes) ; 香 xiāng (fragrant) ; 租 zū (to hire)

Sounds same

成 chéng (to succeed) ; 城 chéng (city)

< Previous 城 chéng Next 吃 chī >

Pronunciation

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

Proverbs

乘风破浪 chéng fēng pò làng To have high ambitions. The story is Zong Que who lived in southern China around 450CE. On his wedding day at the age of 14 (as was the tradition then) a group of bandits attacked the village. Zong Que fought them off almost single-handed. He was asked what was his future ambition and he replied that he wanted to 'ride the wind and break the waves'. He went on to be a leading general who helped maintain the peace in the region.