Chinese Character Wiki

歎

tàn

sigh

Phonosemantic compound. 欠 represents the meaning and 堇 represents the sound.

Components
欠 meaning component

欠  Meaning component

qiàn

  

yawn, deficient

堇 sound component

堇  Sound component

jǐn

  

clay

Evolution

歎 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
歎 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
歎 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
歎 Clerical script Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Clerical script

Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)
歎 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

歎  

tàn

sigh, admire

叹 (歎) 

tàn

variant of 嘆|叹[tàn]

Most common words with 歎
Freq.
Word
Meaning

惊叹

a gasp of surprise

叹

to sigh

叹息

to sigh

感叹

to lament

叹气

to sigh

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*n̥ˤar

than

tān

to sigh


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 5.3660% of movies

2391st most common character in movies

1299th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

15

Unicode

U+6B4E

Shuowen

“歎，吟也。从欠，省聲。，籀文歎不省。”


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