卵
luǎn HSK7

egg

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approved by inralback19 · Feb 10, 2026, 01:47 AM · Reviewed by inralback19 on Feb 10, 2026, 01:47 AM

Rollback 6esdhYaRS59P6E3BD

Changed fields: hint, originalMeaning, isVerified, components, customSources

Original meaning: scrotum

Pictograph of the scrotum of a male's penis. The meaning later shifted to "egg", "ovum", and "spawn".

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartlwaXk.rˤorʔ (dialect: *-r > *-j)egg
lwanXk.rˤorʔ egg

說文解字

《說文》：“卵，凡物無乳者卵生。象形。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.901-902
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)