verb #31,236

Meanings

  1. 1 (literary) to turn; revolve
  2. 2 to rotate

Examples

Tā zài liǎng guó zhījiān wòxuán.
He is mediating between the two countries.
Jīngguò duōfāng wòxuán, zhēngduān dédào jiějué.
After extensive mediation from many sides, the dispute was resolved.

Tips

usage
alone is rare in modern Chinese — you'll almost always see it in the compound 斡旋 (wòxuán, "to mediate / use one's good offices"), a staple of diplomatic and legal news. The metaphor: the diplomat is the handle that turns the situation.
memory
Right side is (dǒu, "dipper / scoop"). Picture turning a ladle's handle — that's , to turn or revolve.

Components

radical
dǒu
dipper; ladle
Right-side dipper radical — pictograph of a long-handled ladle used to measure grain. The indexing radical here, supplying the meaning: a dipper turns and pours, and took that rotational sense to mean 'to revolve, to mediate, to handle.' The same radical sits in material and category.
phonetic
gàn
sunrise glow (here phonetic)
Left side supplies the sound — gàn drifting to wò through an old initial change preserved in this small phonetic family. itself pictures the sun rising behind plants, the same component sitting inside morning and Korea. Here it carries no surviving semantic role; it tags by sound for the 'turn, revolve' verb.

Stroke Order