Meaning of 元旦
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- New Year's Day
How to use 元旦
元旦 refers to January 1 on the Western calendar. It is a public holiday in China, usually with one to three days off. Example: 元旦快乐 (Yuándàn kuàilè) Happy New Year's Day.
元 (yuán) means first or origin, as in 公元 (gōngyuán) Common Era. 旦 (dàn) shows the sun 日 rising above a line, the horizon, so 元旦 is the first sunrise of the year.
Common mistake: Learners often use 元旦 for Chinese New Year, but that is 春节 (Chūnjié), the lunar new year festival. Also do not write 旦 as 日 or 且. 旦 is 日 with one horizontal line underneath.
元旦 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
元 yuán · currency unit · 4 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
旦 dàn · dawn · 5 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Related words
Words that share a character with 元旦.
| 美元 | měiyuán | American dollar; US dollar |
| 单元 | dānyuán | unit (forming an entity); element |
| 公元 | gōngyuán | CE (Common Era); Christian Era |
| 一旦 | yīdàn | in case (sth happens); if |
| 元素 | yuánsù | element (key component of sth); (chemistry) element |
| 元首 | yuánshǒu | head of state |
| 元老 | yuánlǎo | senior figure; doyen; founding member; veteran |
| 状元 | zhuàngyuan | top scorer in the palace examination (highest rank of the Imperial examination system); se |
| 多元 | duōyuán | poly-; multi- |
| 元宵节 | Yuánxiāo Jié | Lantern Festival, the final event of the Spring Festival 春節|春节, on 15th of first month of |
| 欧元 | ōuyuán | euro (currency) |
| 元帅 | yuánshuài | (military) marshal; commander-in-chief |
Questions about 元旦
What does 元旦 mean?
元旦 (Yuándàn) means "New Year's Day" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 元旦?
元旦 is made of 2 characters: 元 (4 strokes), 旦 (5 strokes). That is 9 strokes in total.
Is 元旦 an HSK word?
Yes. 元旦 is on the HSK 5 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
How do you say Happy New Year in Chinese for January 1?
You can say 元旦快乐 (Yuándàn kuàilè) or the general 新年快乐 (xīnnián kuàilè). 新年快乐 works for both January 1 and the lunar new year.
Does 旦 in 元旦 have the same meaning as in 一旦?
Not quite. In 元旦 it keeps its old meaning of dawn or day. In 一旦 (yīdàn) the phrase means once or in case something happens, so the dawn meaning has faded.