奄
yǎnyān

to enclose

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approved by inralback19 · Feb 10, 2026, 12:35 AM · Reviewed by inralback19 on Feb 10, 2026, 12:35 AM

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

Original meaning: original form of 掩

Components

盍
盍 MeaningSimplified component

Phonosemantic compound: Meaning component: 盍 (original form of 蓋: [to cover]). Sound component: (甲) Shuowen believes it to be an iconic compound: 大 (“big”) + 申 (“stretch out”) – to spread over, cover.

甲
甲 Sound component
Change in sound
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 甲 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'jemXʔ(r)omʔ cover

說文解字

《說文》：“奄，覆也。大有餘也。又欠也。从大，从申。申，展也。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)