娥 (é): beautiful woman

Meanings

1 beautiful woman
2 good; beautiful (literary)
3 name element used in female names

Characters

娥

é

beautiful; good (literary); used in female names

Examples

HSK 7-9

嫦娥是中国神话中的月亮女神。

Cháng'é shì Zhōngguó shénhuà zhōng de yuèliàng nǚshén.

Chang'e is the moon goddess in Chinese mythology.

HSK 7-9

娥眉在古诗中常用来比喻美丽的眉毛。

É méi zài gǔshī zhōng cháng yòng lái bǐyù měilì de méimao.

Moth eyebrows are often used in classical poetry to describe beautiful arched eyebrows.

Tips

culture

娥 is famously associated with 嫦娥 (Chang'e), the lunar goddess who drank the elixir of immortality and fled to the moon. China named its lunar exploration program after her.

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman; female

Woman radical on the left, the indexing component. Pictograph of a kneeling woman with arms folded - the classical posture of respectful waiting. It marks 娥 as a female-specific term (beautiful woman, name-element for girls) and pairs it with the family 妹 sister, 姑 aunt, 姐 elder sister, 娟 graceful.

phonetic

我 wǒ

I; me (originally: a halberd)

Right side 我 supplies the sound with a regular shift wǒ to é (an old initial alternation). Same phonetic appears in 鹅 goose, 蛾 moth, 饿 hungry, 俄 sudden - a tight e-family. Use 我 here as a sound key only; the 'I/me' meaning is incidental.