面 Radical 176 — the face; surface, side; a flour noodle
miàn (fourth tone, falling)
the face; surface, side; a flour noodle
Radical 1769 strokes0 characters
Where the shape comes from
A face outlined by its own silhouette, an eye marked inside to stand for the whole — the contour of the head drawn around the one feature that says most about a person looking back at you. It broadened early to any front-facing surface or side, giving 外面, the outside, the outer face of a thing, and 面对, to face, to confront; a separate, later borrowing of the same sound gave it flour and, by extension, 面条, noodles, which share nothing with the face but the sound of the word.
characters filed under 面
No published character on HSK Guide is filed under this radical yet. Character explorer.