向 xiàng is a pictograph of a window opening in a wall. The oracle-bone and bronze forms show the gabled outline of a house with an opening cut into the upper wall, the 口 below standing for that opening. A north-facing window in an early dwelling was a fixed point of orientation, so the glyph came to mean the way a thing faces, and from there the whole field of direction. The 口 at the base, classed as the radical, is the mouth of the opening rather than a spoken mouth.

From the facing window four senses fan out:

1. Direction, the way a thing points. The orientation itself: 方向 fāngxiàng (direction), 风向 fēngxiàng (wind direction), 方向感 fāngxiànggǎn (sense of direction).
2. Toward, to (the preposition). Placed before a target to aim an action at it: 向前 xiàngqián (forward), 向东 xiàng dōng (toward the east), 向他借钱 xiàng tā jièqián (to borrow money from him).
3. To face, to incline toward. The heart or body turning to something: 朝向 cháoxiàng (to face toward), 倾向 qīngxiàng (tendency), 向往 xiàngwǎng (to yearn for).
4. All along, hitherto. Time facing back to the present: 一向 yīxiàng (all along), 向来 xiànglái (always up to now).

The thread is a fixed facing. Whether the orientation is spatial (which way the window opens), directed (the arrow of a preposition), emotional (where the heart leans), or temporal (the settled habit reaching up to now), 向 names the steady way something is turned.

The everyday job of 向 is as a preposition meaning "toward" or "to." It sits before the target and aims the verb at it: 向前走 xiàng qián zǒu (walk forward), 向东开 xiàng dōng kāi (drive toward the east), 向他学习 xiàng tā xuéxí (to learn from him). With a person it can mark the source as well as the goal, the one you direct a request at: 向他借钱 xiàng tā jièqián (to borrow money from him), 向老师提问 xiàng lǎoshī tíwèn (to put a question to the teacher).

Its near-twin is 朝 cháo, which also means "toward" or "facing." The two overlap for physical orientation (向南 and 朝南 both mean "facing south"), but they part ways with abstract or interpersonal targets: 向 is the one used for directing speech, requests, and learning at a person, while 朝 leans toward physical facing and gesture. See the disambiguation note below for the working rule.

When the thing that faces is the heart rather than a wall, 向 turns inward into inclination. 倾向 qīngxiàng is the way a mind leans, a tendency or bias; 向往 xiàngwǎng is the heart turned toward a place or life it longs for; 志向 zhìxiàng is the direction of one's ambition, the aspiration one is set on. In each, 向 keeps its core meaning of a steady facing and applies it to feeling: not where the body points, but where the desire does.

The last sense bends direction onto time. To say a habit has faced one way up to the present is to say it has held all along. 一向 yīxiàng and 向来 xiànglái both mean "all along, hitherto," describing a settled state that has run unbroken from the past up to now: 他一向很准时 "he has always been punctual," 这里向来安静 "it has always been quiet here." The 向 here points back along time to the speaking moment, the way the window points along a line of sight.

See a window cut high in a wall, opening one fixed way. That single facing is the whole character. Everything 向 means is something turned in a settled direction.

Point the window at the compass and it is direction (方向, 风向). Point it as an arrow before a target and it is the preposition toward (向前, 向他借钱). Point the heart through it and it is inclination, the longing for what lies beyond (倾向, 向往). And point it back along the corridor of time and it is the habit held all along, up to this very moment (一向, 向来). Whenever you meet 向, ask which way the window faces.