婶 (shěn): aunt (wife of father's younger…

Meanings

1 aunt (wife of father's younger brother)
2 (used to address) an older married woman of one's parents' generation

Characters

婶

shěn

aunt (wife of father's younger brother)

Examples

我婶今年五十岁了。

Wǒ shěn jīnnián wǔshí suì le.

My aunt is fifty this year.

李婶住在隔壁。

Lǐ shěn zhù zài gébì.

Aunt Li lives next door.

Tips

culture

Specifically the wife of 叔叔 (father's younger brother). Chinese kinship is precise: 伯母 (wife of father's elder brother), 婶 / 婶婶 / 婶子 (wife of father's younger brother), 舅妈 (wife of mother's brother), 姑妈 (father's sister) - all 'aunt' in English. Also used as a friendly form of address (李婶 'Aunt Li') for any older neighbor woman.

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman; female

女 (woman) is the indexing radical and supplies the gender of the kinship term. 婶 specifically names a paternal uncle's wife (叔叔's wife), so the female radical is the right anchor. Kin sisters: 姐, 妹, 姑, 姨, 婆 - all 女-radical relatives.

phonetic

审 shěn

examine; investigate

审 (shěn) supplies the sound, unchanged. The kin term has no semantic link to investigating - phonetics for kinship titles tend to be picked for clean sound, not meaning. Same series: 婶, 沈, 渖. The simplified form 审 contracts the traditional 審.