yǐng
noun #2,756

Meanings

  1. 1 shadow; image
  2. 2 film; photograph

Examples

Wǒmen qù kàn diànyǐng ba.
Let's go watch a movie.
Tā de yǐngxiǎng hěn dà.
His influence is very big.
Pāi yīzhāng zhàopiàn liú gè yǐng.
Take a photo as a souvenir.

Tips

usage
is essential for media: 电影 (movie), 影响 (influence), 摄影 (photography), 影子 (shadow), 影院 (cinema). From shadow → image → film — a natural meaning evolution.

Components

radical
shān
tuft of hair; short streaks
Right indexing radical (Kangxi #59) — three slanted streaks. Originally a tuft of hair, but pedagogically used for any pattern of fine lines or marks: the streaks of light or shadow. Same radical in (shape), (colour), (whiskers), (refined). Here the three strokes literally render the lines of a cast shadow.
phonetic
jǐng
scenery; bright view
Left component supplies the sound (jǐng → yǐng, a soft initial drift) and a strong semantic flavour: means 'sun + capital' = a bright lit scene, exactly the kind of thing that casts a shadow. So is etymologically 'the trace of a brightly lit view'. The -family also includes (yearn), but the sound link here is by far the clearest.

Stroke Order

yǐng