Example sentences

jiùgòu

One is enough.

xiànzàidiǎn

It's one o'clock.

The story behind the character

One horizontal stroke, the simplest character there is. Yet Xu Shen loaded it with the heaviest meaning: 一, 惟初太始: "one, the very beginning, where the Way is set and heaven and earth divide." One stroke, holding up the whole start of the universe. That might be the most weight a single line has ever carried.

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