嚴
yánYán HSK4

strict

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approved by inralback19 · Jan 4, 2026, 10:11 PM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Jan 5, 2026, 09:52 PM

originalneaning

Changed fields: originalMeaning

Original meaning: exaggerate

Phonosemantic compound. 喦 represents the meaning and 敢 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "exaggerate". The meaning later shifted to "extreme", "severe", and "strict".

Components

喦
喦 Meaning component
niè, yì talkative
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 喦 than it was in ancient scripts.
敢
敢 Sound component
gǎn to dare

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Warring States ~400 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Qin 221-206 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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 Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartngjaemŋ(r)am stern, majestic

說文解字

《說文》：“嚴，教命急也。从吅，聲。，古文。”

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)