朝 pictures daybreak. The oracle-bone and bronze forms set the sun among grass or trees on the left, with the moon still hanging beside it on the right. It is the moment the sun has cleared the grass but the moon has not yet faded: the dawn. From that single scene the whole character grows, and the radical here is 月, the moon left in the morning sky.

That dawn moment forks into two readings:

zhāo, the morning itself. The literal daybreak and everything fresh that comes with it: 朝阳 zhāoyáng (the morning sun), 朝气 zhāoqì (youthful vigor, the air of a new day), 朝夕 zhāoxī (morning and evening, every hour), 今朝 jīnzhāo (this morning, today).

cháo, the court and what flows from it. The royal court met at daybreak, when officials came to attend the ruler. So the dawn word also became the word for that gathering: 朝廷 cháotíng (the imperial court), then the reign it served, 朝代 cháodài (a dynasty), 唐朝 Táng cháo (the Tang dynasty). From the act of officials turning to face the throne came a further sense, to face toward, which thins into the everyday preposition 朝 cháo (toward).

The thread runs from a single image. The sun rising past the moon is the morning (zhāo); the court that gathered in that morning, the line of rulers it served, and the act of facing the throne are the cháo senses. One dawn, two readings, four fields of meaning.

Out of the act of facing the throne, 朝 cháo settled into an everyday preposition meaning "toward" or "facing." It sits before a direction or a target and aims the verb at it: 朝南 cháo nán (facing south), 朝前走 cháo qián zǒu (walk forward), 朝我笑 cháo wǒ xiào (to smile toward me). The fuller form 朝着 cháozhe carries the same job with a sense of sustained motion or facing: 朝着目标前进 "advance toward the goal."

Its near-twin is 向 xiàng, which also means "toward." The two are interchangeable for physical facing and gesture: 朝南 and 向南 both mean "facing south," 朝他招手 and 向他招手 both mean "to wave toward him." They part ways with abstract or interpersonal targets: 向 is the one used to direct speech, requests, and learning at a person (向他借钱 "to borrow money from him," 向老师请教 "to consult the teacher"), where 朝 sounds wrong. See the disambiguation note below for the working rule.

Read as zhāo, 朝 keeps the original dawn. It is the morning itself and, by a natural step, the freshness and energy of a new day. 朝阳 zhāoyáng is the rising sun, light just clearing the horizon; 朝气 zhāoqì is the vigor of morning carried over into people, the lively spirit of the young; 朝夕 zhāoxī is "morning and evening," a way of saying every hour, day in and day out. Where cháo points to thrones and dynasties, zhāo points back to the first reading of the glyph: the sun coming up past the moon.

Picture the instant of dawn: the sun has just cleared the grass on one side, while the moon still hangs pale on the other. Hold that single image; it is the whole character.

Read the scene as the hour and you have zhāo, the morning and its freshness (朝阳, 朝气, 朝夕). Now fill that morning with a court of officials come to attend the ruler at daybreak, and you have cháo: the court (朝廷), the reign it served, the dynasty (朝代, 王朝), and the act of facing the throne that thins into the preposition toward (朝南, 朝着). Whenever you meet 朝, first decide whether it is the morning or the court, and the reading follows.