文旦 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

wéndàn

pomelo

wén writing

Pictograph of a man with writing (possibly a tattoo) on his chest. In later scripts the writing was abbreviated to a dot or omitted altogether.

Character Evolution

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Qin 221-206 BC

Clerical form — Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Component uses

Sound (3 of 13 verified)

这纹玫坟蚊雯紊汶玟紋閔忞炆

Meaning (2 of 8 verified)

斑斌彦斐闵斓彥斕

Simplified (2)

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	mjun	mə[n]	ornate

說文解字

《說文》：“文，錯畫也。象交文。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.706
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

dàn dawn

Depicts the sun (日) rising above the horizon (一) at dawn. In the oracle bone script the bottom component was the phonetic 丁, which was later reanalyzed as the earth or a horizon.

Components

日 Iconic component

rì sun

一 Iconic component

yī one

Depicts the horizon.

Character Evolution

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Oracle form — Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Bronze form — Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Seal form — Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC

Seal form — Seal Shuowen ~100 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Qin 221-206 BC

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Regular Modern

▼ More ▲ Less

Component uses

Sound (4 of 12 verified)

但担坦胆袒靼疸妲笪怛钽亶

Meaning (3 of 4 verified)

Unknown (2 of 3 verified)

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	tanH	tˤan-s	dawn

說文解字

《說文》：“旦，明也。从日見一上。一，地也。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.539
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)