piān​xiān

dancing gracefully

piān fly

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
feather
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

xiān wander about Simplified

Components

Meaning component
foot

foot

Sound component
qiān move

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode

wander about Traditional

Components

Meaning component
foot

foot

Sound component
qiān move, shift

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangsen
seːn

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang