Zhenren (Chinese: 真人; pinyin: zhēnrén; Wade–Giles: chen-jen; lit. 'true/ upright/ genuine person' or 'person of truth') is a Chinese term that first appeared in the Zhuangzi meaning "a Taoist spiritual master" in those writings, as in one who has mastered realization of the Tao. Religious Taoism mythologized zhenren, having them occupy various places in the celestial hierarchy sometimes synonymous with xian. Zhenren has been used in various ways depending on the sect and time period.

The common Chinese word 真; zhen; "true; real; authentic, upright" is linguistically unusual. It was originally written with an ideogram (one of the rarest types in Chinese character classification) depicting "spiritual transformation". It originated in the Taoist Tao Te Ching that has similar characteristics to the Ancient Chinese term Jūnzǐ (君子) that appears in the early Confucian classics.

The archaic Chinese character 眞 was reduced into 真, which is the Traditional Chinese character, Simplified Chinese character, and Japanese Kanji. (Note the slight font variation between Chinese 真 and Japanese 真: when enlarged, the Japanese character reveals separation between the central and lower parts.) This modern character 真 appears to derive from 兀; wu; "stool" under 直; zhi; "straight", but the ancient 眞 has 匕; hua (a reduced variant of 化) "upside-down person; transformation" at the top, rather than 十; shi; "10". This antiquated zhen 眞 derives from seal script characters (4th–3rd centuries BCE). It is tentatively identified in the earlier bronzeware script (with 匕 over ding (鼎; "cooking vessel; tripod; cauldron") and unidentified in the earliest oracle bone script.

Xu Shen's Shuowen Jiezi (122 CE), the first Chinese dictionary of characters, gives small seal script and "ancient text" forms of zhen 眞, noting origins in Taoism. It defines 眞 as "A xian (Taoist "transcendent; immortal") transforming shape and ascending into Heaven" (僊人變形而登天也), and interprets 眞 as an ideogram with 匕 "upside-down person", 目 "eye", and ∟ "conceal" representing the xian plus 八 representing the conveyance. In Coyle's interpretation,

The etymological components suggest transforming to a higher level of character, thus genuineness is to be conceived as fundamentally transformational, that is, as an ongoing process of change. As Wang Bi's (226–249 C.E.) commentary to the Yijing suggests, zhen is in "constant mutation." By envisioning a new image, it appears, with zhen, the writers of the Laozi and Zhuangzi wanted to distinguish their teaching from others.

Duan Yucai's Shuowen commentary (1815 CE) confirms that zhen originally depicted a Taoist zhenren and was semantically extended to mean cheng 誠 "sincere; honest; true; actual; real". It explains the ideographic components in Taoist xian terms, 匕 for hua 化 "change; transformation" (see the Huashu), 目 for the "eyes; vision" in neidan practices, ∟ "conceal" for invisibility; and, it notes three traditional xian conveyances into the heavens (qi, Chinese dragon, and qilin).

Duan differentiates two semantic sets of words written with the zhen 真/眞 phonetic element and different radicals. The first words basically mean chongshi 充實 "real; solid; substantial; substantiate; fill out; strengthen".

The second set of words basically mean ding 頂 "crown (of head); top; tip; summit; prop up; fall down".