祖先

祖先 zǔxiān

Ancestor (forefather)

祖先 in a sentence HSK 6 zuxian

What 祖先 means

  1. Ancestor (forefather)

These meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the Chinese to Pinyin translator and the Chinese to English translator, so a whole sentence containing 祖先 will read it the same way this page does.

Recognise a piece of 祖先 but not the character it belongs to? Pick the parts in the component character finder and it will name the character for you — free for every character, with nothing to sign in to.

Character by character

祖先 is written with 2 characters. Chinese words are usually easier to remember once you can see what each part contributes.

祖
zǔ
Grandparent (ancestor - founder)
先
xiān
Earlier (before - first - prior - former - late)

How to write 祖先

Stroke order is not decoration — it is what makes handwriting legible and what dictionary lookup by stroke count depends on.

Practise 祖先 on printable 田字格 sheets, trace it in the writing practice tool, or watch any other character in the Stroke Order Animator.

祖先 in a sentence

我们的祖先很早就学会了种地。
Wǒmen de zǔxiān hěn zǎo jiù xuéhuì le zhòngdì.
Our ancestors learned to farm very early.
这些习俗是祖先传下来的。
Zhèxiē xísú shì zǔxiān chuán xiàlái de.
These customs were handed down by our ancestors.

Every sentence on this site that uses 祖先 is collected on the 祖先 sentence page. Want pinyin above a sentence of your own? Paste it into the Pinyin Annotator.

Questions about 祖先

What does 祖先 mean in English?

祖先 is pronounced zǔxiān and means Ancestor (forefather).

How do you pronounce 祖先?

祖先 is zǔxiān in pinyin — written zuxian without tone marks. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice.

What are the characters in 祖先?

祖先 is written with 2 characters: 祖 (zǔ) Grandparent (ancestor - founder), 先 (xiān) Earlier (before - first - prior - former - late). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.

Is 祖先 an HSK word?

Yes — 祖先 is on the official HSK 6 vocabulary list. You can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 6 page.

Studied around the same time

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