xiàn

envy, desire

Depicts a person salivating () when seeing a tasty sheep () that they have a desire to eat.

Components

Iconic component
yáng sheep
SoundIconic component
xián spit, saliva

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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-SagartzjenHs-N-qa[r]-s covet, desire
zjenHs-[ɢ]a[n]-s surplus, affluence
yen[ɢ]a[n] extend; go forward

說文解字

《說文》:“羨,貪欲也。从,从羑省。羑呼之羑,文王所拘羑里。”

Sources

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