yàn

plump

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
hé, kě what? why not?
Sound component
abundant

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhanglams
Unicodeiɛ̀m

說文解字

好而長也。从豐。豐,大也。盇聲。《春秋傳》曰:“美而豔。”

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica