蚕 (cán) is a Chinese character meaning “silkworm”. It is written from 天 (sky; heaven; day) and 虫 (insect; bug; worm), one above the other, and takes 10 strokes.
Build the character for “silkworm”
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Structure
天 + 虫
Top–bottom structure
Structure from: Unicode U+8695, Unicode radical 142 (虫), and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection (strokes 0–3 form 天; strokes 4–9 form 虫)
Memory aid
Under the open sky (天) a little bug (虫) spins its thread — the silkworm.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
10 strokes
In real words
- 蚕丝cán sīsilk (spun by silkworms)蚕 = cán
- 蚕茧cán jiǎnsilkworm cocoon蚕 = cán
Go deeper
All readings
silkworm
silkworm
家蚕、柞蚕等吐丝结茧的昆虫，通常指家蚕。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 蚕丝cán sīsilk (spun by silkworms)蚕 = cán
- 蚕茧cán jiǎnsilkworm cocoon蚕 = cán
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 蚕 mean?
蚕 (cán) means silkworm.
How do you pronounce 蚕?
It is pronounced cán.
What parts is 蚕 made of?
天 (sky; heaven; day) and 虫 (insect; bug; worm), one above the other. The recorded source is: Unicode U+8695, Unicode radical 142 (虫), and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection (strokes 0–3 form 天; strokes 4–9 form 虫). Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 蚕 have?
10. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 蚕?
虫. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 蚕?
Common ones are 蚕丝 and 蚕茧. The reading of 蚕 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.