炼化
liàn​huà

refine

炼 liàn smelt Simplified

Phonosemantic compound. 火 represents the meaning and 柬 represents the sound. Simplified form of 煉.

Components

火
火 Meaning component
huǒ fire
柬
柬 Sound component
jiǎn letter

Shorthand derived from the cursive form of the traditional 柬 component.

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode

化 huà change

Pictograph of a right-side up person (亻) and an upside-down person (𠤎), depicting the meaning "turn around" or "transform".

Components

亻
亻 Iconic component
rén person

亻 is a component form of 人.

𠤎
𠤎 Iconic component
huà upside-down person

Depicts an upside-down person.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Qin 221-206 BC
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 Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (4 of 7 verified)

花华货靴讹貨訛

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartxwaeHqʷʰˤ<r>aj-s transform

說文解字

《說文》：“化，教行也。从，从人，亦聲。”

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)

煉 liàn smelt Traditional

Phonosemantic compound. 火 represents the meaning and 柬 represents the sound.

Components

火
火 Meaning component
huǒ fire
柬
柬 Sound component
jiǎn letter

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangɡ·reːns

說文解字

《說文》：“煉，鑠治金也。从火，柬聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)