十 Radical 24 — ten; complete, entire
shí (second tone, rising)
ten; complete, entire
Radical 242 strokes2 characters
Where the shape comes from
A tally cord: a single vertical with a knot tied at its middle to mark off a full ten. On bronze inscriptions the knot is a swollen dot; the brush drew it out into the crossbar we write today. Because ten is a complete hand-count twice over, 十分 means "fully". It heads 千, 华, 南 and 博.