yàn

dislike, (to push down on)

Original meaning: 

to push down on

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound. Original form of (press, push down), related to packed-earth construction of buildings ().

Components
厂 meaning component

  Meaning component

hǎnchǎng

  

cliff, (roof)

The outer walls of buildings in premodern China were filled with earth that was packed down (). This is one of the cases where the forms of 广 (building) and (cliff) were used interchangeably to mean the same thing.

猒 sound component

  Sound component

yàn

  

satiate, eat one's fill

Evolution

厭 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
厭 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
厭 Clerical script Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)

Clerical script

Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)
厭 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

yàn

dislike, detest, reject; satiate; to loathe

Most common words with 厭
Freq.
Word
Meaning

讨厌

to dislike

厌倦

to be weary of

厌恶

to loathe

to loathe

厌烦

bored

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)

Sound component in 4 characters (1 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ʔep

'jiep

press (v.)

*ʔem

'jiem

yān

contented (adj.)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 54.9255% of movies

786th most common character in movies

1633rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

14

Simplified

Unicode

U+53AD

Shuowen

“厭,笮也。从厂,猒聲。一曰:合也。”


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