Chinese Character Wiki
耎

ruǎn

flexible, soft, weak

Original meaning: 

become wet

Same in origin to 需. Pictograph of a person (大) standing under the rain (雨), representing the meaning "become wet", now written as 濡. The current meaning is a phonetic loan. The 雨 (rain) component was later replaced with the phonetic component 而.

Components
而 sound component

而  Sound component

ér

  

and

Originally 雨 (rain). Later replaced with phonetic component 而.

大 iconic component

大  Iconic component

dà, dài

  

big

Depicts a person getting wet.

Evolution

耎 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
耎 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
耎 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
耎 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

耎  

ruǎn

weak, pliable, soft, yielding; archaic variant of 軟|软[ruǎn]

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)

輭

Sound component in 1 character (1 verified)

輭

Simplified component in 1 character (1 verified)

軟

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

8037th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+800E

Shuowen

“耎，稍前大也。从大，而聲，讀若畏偄。”


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