婶 (shěn) · aunt (wife of father's younger brother)

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

HSK 1

我婶今年五十岁了。

Wǒ shěn jīnnián wǔshí suì le.

My aunt is fifty this year.

HSK 6

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.