染 — Edit Snapshot — Chinese Character Wiki

rǎn HSK5

dye, infect, be contagious

approved by inralback19 · Feb 6, 2026, 11:30 PM · Reviewed by inralback19 on Feb 6, 2026, 11:30 PM

Rollback WZ6kLXPd8WP4y9K3a

Changed fields: gloss, hint, isVerified, components, customSources, strokeDataSimp, fragmentsSimp, historicalImages

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 杂 represents the sound.

Components

氵 Meaning component

杂 Sound component

Change in sound

染 and 杂 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.

Regular Modern

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	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	nyemX	C.n[a]mʔ	to dye

《說文》：“染，以繒染為色。从水，杂聲。”