寒
hán HSK4

cold

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approved by Peter Olson · Nov 17, 2021, 04:12 AM · Reviewed by Peter Olson on Nov 17, 2021, 04:12 AM

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Changed fields: components

Depicts a person (人) under a roof (宀) surrounding himself with grass bedding (茻) to try to stay warm in the cold weather. The 冫 (ice) component was added later.

Components

宀
宀 Iconic component
茻
茻 Iconic component

Depicts grass bedding.

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

Depicts a person trying to stay warm.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 人 than it was in ancient scripts.
冫
冫 Meaning component

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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 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
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarthanCə.[g]ˤa[n] cold

說文解字

《說文》：“寒，凍也。从人在宀下，以茻薦覆之，下有仌。”

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)