翩
piān

fly

Phonosemantic compound. 羽 represents the meaning and 扁 represents the sound.

Components

羽
羽 Meaning component
yǔ feather
扁
扁 Sound component
biǎn flat

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartphjienpʰe[n]fly, flutter about
Zhengzhangpʰen
Unicodepiɛn

說文解字

疾飛也。从羽扁聲。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)