贛
Gàn

Jiangxi province

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approved by Prismcool · Feb 14, 2026, 05:13 PM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Feb 14, 2026, 05:13 PM

currency

Changed fields: components

Original meaning: to bestow

Depicts a person with outstretched hands (丮) holding a jade ornament (章). The 貝 (shell) component was later added to clarify the original meaning. Based on the original meaning "to bestow". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

章
章 Iconic component

Depicts a jade ornament.

丮
丮 Iconic component

Depicts a person with outstretched hands.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 丮 than it was in ancient scripts.
貝
貝 Meaning component

In ancient China, shells were used as currency.

Change in meaning
貝 hints at the original meaning of 贛, "to bestow", which is no longer the most common meaning of 贛 in modern Mandarin.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 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

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkomXk[o]mʔ the Gàn river
komH[k]ˤom-s the Gàn river in Jiangxi
kuwngH[k]ˤom-s (dialect: *-om > *-oŋ)tribute

說文解字

《說文》：“贛，賜也。从貝，贛省聲。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.521李学勤《字源》p.569
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)