juān
adjective #15,119

Meanings

  1. 1 beautiful
  2. 2 graceful

Examples

HSK 5
Chánjuān cháng yònglái xíngróng yuèliàng.
Chanjuan is often used to describe the moon.
HSK 7-9
Tā xiě de yīshǒu juānxiù de zì.
She writes beautifully elegant characters.

Tips

usage
is a bound morpheme, never used alone. Common compounds: 娟秀 (elegant and delicate), 婵娟 (the beautiful moon / a beautiful woman). Also extremely popular as a component of women's names.
culture
婵娟 appears in Su Shi's famous Mid-Autumn Festival poem: 但愿人长久,千里共婵娟 ('May we live long and share the beauty of the moon across a thousand miles'). One of the most quoted lines in Chinese poetry.

Components

radical
woman
marks as a feminine-quality word, used overwhelmingly to describe women - "graceful, lovely." Common in female given names (婷娟, 美娟). Same family: , , - all femininity-flavoured adjectives.
phonetic
yuān
small worm (phonetic stem)
supplies the sound yuān → juān. You also see this phonetic in (trickle), (donate), (cuckoo). All share the j-/y- drift and the -uān rhyme. No standalone reading you'd use today.

Stroke Order

juān