彥
yàn

elegant

Depicts being accomplished in both literature (文) and military skill (弓). 厂 is a phonetic component.

Components

文
文 Meaning component
wén writing
厂
厂 Sound component
chǎng cliff, (roof)
弓
弓 Meaning component
gōng bow
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 弓 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (2 of 3 verified)

Meaning (0 of 1 verified)

Remnant (1)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartngjenHŋrar-s adornment

說文解字

《說文》:“彥,美士有文,人所言也。从彣,厂聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

彦 yàn, pán elegant Simplified

Simplified form of 彥. Depicts being accomplished in both literature (文) and military skill (弓). 厂 is a phonetic component.

Components

文
文 Meaning component
wén writing
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 文 than it was in ancient scripts.
厂
厂 Sound component
chǎng cliff, (roof)
弓
弓 Meaning component
gōng bow
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 弓 than it was in ancient scripts.

Component uses

Sound (3 of 4 verified)

Remnant (2)

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangŋrans
Unicodebgyɛ̀n

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang