yán
cliff
Phonosemantic compound. 山 represents the meaning and 嚴 represents the sound.
Evolution

Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Seal script
Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernHistorical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[ŋ]ˤr[a]m (< uvular?) | ngaem | yán | rocky, lofty |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
Appears in 5.4301% of movies
1962nd most common character in movies
1423rd most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 22 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+5DD6 |
Shuowen | “巖,岸也。从山,嚴聲。” |
Sources
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