臽
xiàn

a pit

Depicts a person (人) falling into a pit or a trap (凵). Original form of 陷.

Components

人
人 Iconic component
rén, ren person
凵
凵 Iconic component
qiǎn, kǎn enclosure

Depicts a pit or a trap. Modern form looks like 臼.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 凵 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Shang ~1100 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (4 of 10 verified)

陷焰阎掐馅谄萏閻諂餡

Iconic (1)

陷

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

欿

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartheamH[ɢ]ˤromʔ-s small pit

說文解字

《說文》：“臽，小阱也。从人在臼上也。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.582-583
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)