Phonosemantic compound. 欠 represents the meaning and 雚 represents the sound. 欠 (yawn) is a pictograph of a person with an open mouth, used here to represent a person joyfully laughing.
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | xwan | qʷʰˤar | rejoice; joyous |
說文解字
《說文》：“歡，喜樂也。从欠，雚聲。”
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)