人

rén

man; people; mankind; someone else

Meaning

Individual/Generic: A human being or person; generally gender-neutral in ancient contexts.
Collective: "People" or "the populace."
Universal/Abstract: "Mankind" or "humanity," frequently appearing in philosophical discussions of human nature.
Indefinite Pronoun: "Someone else," "another," or "others."

Grammar and usage

Impersonal Subject: When initiating a sentence followed by a verb (e.g., 人云... "People say..."), it often indicates general truth or hearsay rather than a specific group.
Qualifier: In compounds, used to specify human agency as distinct from animal or divine action.

Distinctions

Contrast with 民 (mín): While 人 refers to humans biologically or ontologically, 民 typically denotes people as subjects of a state or as a specific socioeconomic class (commoners).

History and forms

Variant U+4EBB: A minor orthographic variation with no change in meaning.

Graphical notes

Radical Form (亻): When appearing as a radical, the glyph anchors the term to human behavior, social status, or physical attributes.

Translator notes

Scale: The primary challenge is determining whether the glyph refers to an individual, a collective, or a category.
Indefinite Pronouns: If a literal rendering of "person" feels clunky, test the sense as an indefinite pronoun (e.g., "others").

Decontextualized translator aid. This page describes plausible lexical range; it does not choose what the glyph means in a particular passage.