What does yuan mean?
A yuan is the basic unit of money in the renminbi, the official currency of the People's Republic of China. One yuan is divided into 10 jiao or 100 fen, and amounts are commonly written with the Chinese character ¥ or the letters CNY, as in ¥100 or CNY 100. In English, the word appears in travel, banking, exchange-rate, and financial contexts: a traveler may change yuan into another currency, or a report may compare the yuan's value with the dollar or euro. Yuan also refers, when capitalized, to the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol dynasty that ruled China from 1271 to 1368. The term comes from Chinese yuán, written 元 or 圓 and associated with meanings such as “first,” “original,” and “round.” Its monetary sense developed through Chinese coinage and currency systems, especially under the Yuan dynasty. For most contemporary readers, however, yuan functions simply as the name of a major international currency unit.
nounA yuan is the basic monetary unit of the renminbi, the official currency of the People's Republic of China. It is divided into 10 jiao or 100 fen, and the word also names the historical Yuan dynasty of China.
- The monetary unit of the renminbi, the currency of the People's Republic of China, divided into 100 fen.
- The name of the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol-led dynasty that ruled China from 1271 to 1368.
"The meal cost eighty yuan, which was less than the guide had expected."
"She exchanged a handful of yuan for local currency before leaving the airport."
"The Yuan dynasty established important precedents for imperial administration and monetary issuance."
The plural is grammatically possible, but yuan is normally used unchanged when expressing amounts, especially in financial and travel contexts.
"The bank had several yuans in small-denomination notes."
The yuan is China's major currency unit, and its name is also the name of a dynasty that ruled China from 1271 to 1368.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does yuan come from?
The English word yuan comes from Chinese yuán, written 元 or 圓 depending on context and conventionally associated with meanings such as “first,” “original,” and “round.” Its use as a monetary term is connected with the Yuan dynasty, under which the Mongol government issued paper money and developed a large imperial currency system. The Chinese yuan also appears as a morpheme in compounds such as yuányīn, “vowel,” and yuánsù, “element.”
How yuan is actually used
In modern English, yuan generally refers to the monetary unit rather than to the whole currency, whose official name is renminbi. The dynasty name is normally capitalized as Yuan.
Easily confused with yuan
A yuan is the monetary unit of China's renminbi, whereas a yen is the monetary unit of Japan's currency.