蛋蛋 dàndàn balls Definitions Defs Origin Strokes Stroke Words Sentences Sents 蛋 dàn eggs Phonosemantic compound. 虫 represents the meaning and 延 represents the sound. Components 延 延 SoundRemnant component yán delay Change in sound 蛋 and 延 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Old Chinese. 蛋 l'aːns 延 *la[n] 虫 虫 Meaning component chóng bug, insect Historical Pronunciations Old ChineseZhengzhangl'aːns Sources Character origin 漢語多功能字庫Readings & variants Unicode Historical pronunciations Zhengzhang Shangfang