yín
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 to move forward; to advance; hesitant (archaic)

Examples

Chuán mànmàn chén rù hǎi zhōng.
The ship slowly sank into the sea.

Tips

history
('to advance / hesitant') is archaic and not used independently in modern Chinese. It survives as the phonetic in (to sink), (pillow), (to indulge / delay), and (to glare at).

Components

ideograph
cover; yoke element
The top is a 'cover' stroke standing for a yoke or burden carried by the figure below in .
semantic
rén
person walking
The 'person' below pictures someone moving forward under the cover above, giving the 'advance' sense of .

Stroke Order

yín