吊兰
diào​lán

spider plant

吊 diào to hang

Original meaning: silk streamers used for arrows

Variant of 弔. Depicts a person carrying silk streamers used for wrapping around arrows with. Based on the original meaning "silk streamers used for arrows", now written as 繳. The meaning later shifted to "to hang" and "to hang a person".

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts silk streamers used for wrapping around arrows with.

人
人 Iconic component
rén, ren person
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 人 than it was in ancient scripts.

Component uses

Sound (0 of 2 verified)

铞屌

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

屌

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttewHtˤ[e]wk-sgrieved; condole
Zhengzhangtiːwɢs

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.639-640黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》p.838-839漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang

兰 lán orchid Simplified

Simplified form of 蘭. Phonosemantic compound. 䒑 represents the meaning and 三 represents the sound.

Components

䒑
䒑 Meaning component
cǎo grass

䒑 is a component form of 艸.

二
二 Simplified component
èr two

Shorthand for the 闌 component in the traditional character 蘭.

Component uses

Sound (1 of 3 verified)

烂拦栏

Sources

Character origin
Wiktionary
Readings & variants
Unicode

蘭 orchid Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 闌 represents the sound.

Components

艹
艹 Meaning component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

闌
闌 Sound component
door screen

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Three Kingdoms (Wu) 222-280 AD
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
Clerical form
Clerical Western Jin 266-316 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartlank.rˤan orchid

說文解字

《說文》：“蘭，香艸也。从艸，闌聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)