Tian
name, noun ·1 syllable ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An oval cooking-pot, traditionally used in Provence.
- 2 A Provençal dish of layered baked vegetables.
- 1 A surname.
- 2 Synonym of Heaven: simultaneously conceived as the Heavens, Nature, and an anthropomorphic supreme God. Chinese
"...‘Heaven’ as we use it throughout the book is only a convenient but inaccurate translation of the Chinese character tian. Heaven in Chinese religions as well as in the Confucian tradition has multidimensional implications... In its metaphysical and physical connotation, Heaven... refers to... Nature. Applied in the spiritual realm, it signifies an anthropomorphic Lord or a Supreme Being who presides in Heaven, and rules over or governs directly the spiritual and material worlds."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples""Why does Urumqi have such cold weather?" "Naturally, because it's north of the Tian Shan.""
Etymology
From French, from Provençal tian, from Old Occitan, from Ancient Greek τήγανον (tḗganon), variant of τάγηνον (tágēnon, “frying pan”).
The pinyin romanization of Mandarin 田 (Tián).
The pinyin romanization of Mandarin 天 (Tiān).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.