歎
tàn

sigh

Phonosemantic compound. 欠 represents the meaning and 堇 represents the sound.

Components

欠
欠 Meaning component
qiàn, qian yawn, deficient
𦰩
𦰩 Sound component
jiān to sigh

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartthann̥ˤar to sigh

說文解字

《說文》：“歎，吟也。从欠，省聲。，籀文歎不省。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)