yuàn

large ring of fine jade

Components

Meaning component
wáng king

jade

Sound component
yuán pull, draw, lead on

Character Evolution

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

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangɢʷans

說文解字

大孔璧。人君上除陛以相引。从玉爰聲。《爾雅》曰:“好倍肉謂之瑗,肉倍好謂之璧。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica