Chinese character 电 (diàn)

Electricity or electric power; sometimes lightning.

In Mandarin it sounds roughly like “dyen,” with a falling pitch; its Pinyin spelling is diàn. 闪电 means lightning, 电力 electric power, 电话 telephone, and 电子 electron or “electronic,” depending on the compound. 电脑 means computer.

Why do I see 電 instead?

电 is Simplified Chinese; 電 is Traditional Chinese.

The difference between 电 and 電 is the writing standard: use 电 in Simplified Chinese text and 電 in Traditional Chinese text. Mainland China's simplification scheme prescribed 电 in 1956. 電 visibly retains 雨 (“rain”) above 申; 电 compresses that structure.

Where did 電 come from?

Its older written form is tied to lightning.

A recognisable 電 appears on the lid of the Fan Sheng gui, a bronze vessel, from the late Western Zhou, an early period of Chinese history. Its structure places 雨 (“rain”) above 申. Earlier oracle-bone writing—inscriptions carved on animal bones and turtle shells—shows 申 graphs resembling crooked lightning, but surviving inscriptions use 申 as an Earthly Branch, a cyclical calendar sign, rather than the word for lightning. That older shape helps explain the 申 component in 電. The meaning later widened from storm lightning to electric power and technology.