卷 (juàn): scroll

Meanings

1 scroll
2 volume; chapter
3 examination paper
4 classifier for books, paintings (volume, scroll)

Characters

卷

juàn

scroll

Examples

老师正在批改试卷。

Lǎoshī zhèngzài pīgǎi shìjuàn.

The teacher is grading the exam papers.

这本书分上下两卷。

Zhè běn shū fēn shàngxià liǎng juàn.

This book is divided into two volumes.

他收藏了一卷古画。

Tā shōucáng le yī juàn gǔ huà.

He collected an antique painted scroll.

Tips

usage

The juàn reading covers anything paper-bound: paintings (画卷), scrolls (卷轴), exam papers (试卷, 考卷, 答卷), files and dossiers (卷宗, 案卷). Same character as juǎn 'to roll' — a scroll IS a rolled thing, just named for its final form rather than the action.

history

Before printed books, Chinese texts were written on bamboo strips or silk bound into rolls — one 卷 = one physical roll = one chapter. The chengyu 读书破万卷 ('read until ten thousand scrolls wear out') and 手不释卷 ('never put the scroll down') both preserve this scroll-as-book sense.

Components

phonetic

龹

rolled-up bundle shape

Top component (also atop 拳, 眷, 券) supplies the sound juàn/juǎn. The juàn reading takes the 'finished rolled object' sense of the bundling gesture: a scroll, a sealed exam paper, a bound volume. Indexed under Kangxi #26 卩 by tradition; the radical isn't visibly present in the modern form.

semantic

㔾 jié

kneeling person; sealed shape

Bottom 㔾 — a curved kneeling-figure form related to 卩. For the juàn reading, the folded-body shape evokes a closed, bound object: a sealed scroll, a rolled-up painting, an exam paper folded for submission. The sister reading juǎn keeps the active verb of doing the rolling.