The character 明 (míng): bright

Hazy blue mountains fill the lower half of the picture under a wide cream and gold sky. An orange sun rises at the left in a fan of rays, a slim cream crescent moon hangs at the top right, and a red pavilion with upswept roofs perches on a wooded crag. Between sun and moon stands the character 明 in near black: a short frame split by one bar, then a taller frame split by two, its left side curving outward as it falls.

Pronunciation: míng
Strokes: 8
Radical: 日
Made of: 日月

What it means

bright; opposite: dark 暗[an4]; (of meaning) clear; to understand; next; public or open; wise; generic term for a sacrifice to the gods

Where its shape comes from

Everyone knows the explanation: the sun and the moon side by side, therefore brightness. It suits the character written today. The oldest graphs, however, know a second form, and that is the one Xu Shen keeps: on the left not the sun but 囧 (jiǒng), a latticed window, and on the right the moon, light coming in through the window. Both graphs sit together on the oracle bones, and the one with the sun won out. The popular reading describes the modern character well, but not its earliest state.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

A way to remember it

Two characters you have already met, standing shoulder to shoulder: 日 on the left, 月 on the right. Count the bars enclosed in each one: ONE on the left, TWO on the right. That is the whole of it, and it is exactly what a hurried hand gets wrong.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

明天 míng tiān · HSK 1 tomorrow
明白 míng bai · HSK 3 clear; obvious; unequivocal; sensible; reasonable; to understand; to realize
聪明 cōng ming · HSK 3 intelligent; clever; bright; acute (of sight and hearing)
说明 shuō míng · HSK 4 to explain; to illustrate; to indicate; to show; to prove; explanation; directions; caption; CL:個|个[ge4]
证明 zhèng míng · HSK 4 proof; certificate; identification; testimonial; CL:個|个[ge4]; to prove; to testify; to confirm the truth of
明显 míng xiǎn · HSK 5 clear; distinct; obvious

Writing it

See the stroke order of 明, animated stroke by stroke.