媛
yuànyuán

beauty

Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 爰 represents the sound.

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
爰
爰 Sound component
yuán pull, draw, lead on

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarthjwenH[ɢ]ʷra[n]-sa beauty
Zhengzhangɢʷans
ɢʷan

說文解字

美女也。人所援也。从女从爰。爰，引也。《詩》曰：“邦之媛兮。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)