染 (rǎn) · to dye; to color

Meanings

1 to dye; to color
2 to contaminate; to catch (a disease)
3 to be tainted by; to acquire (bad habits)

Characters

染

rǎn

to dye; to stain; to contaminate

Examples

HSK 3

不要染上坏习惯。

Búyào rǎnshàng huài xíguàn.

Don't pick up bad habits.

HSK 5

他染上了流感。

Tā rǎnshàng le liúgǎn.

He caught the flu.

HSK 6

她把头发染成了红色。

Tā bǎ tóufa rǎn chéng le hóngsè.

She dyed her hair red.

HSK 6

这条河被污水染黑了。

Zhè tiáo hé bèi wūshuǐ rǎn hēi le.

This river has been turned black by sewage.

Tips

usage

染 has three main uses: dyeing (染发, dye hair), disease (传染, infect; 感染, get infected), and bad influence (染上坏习惯, pick up bad habits).

memory

The character 染 has 木 (wood) at the bottom and 氵(water) on the left - wood being soaked in dye water.

Components

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

Bottom wood radical - the indexing radical. Represents the plant source of the dye: most traditional Chinese dyes came from tree bark, leaves, and roots. Anchors the etymology - 染 was originally about extracting colour from plant matter. A rare three-component compound ideograph.

semantic

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form)

Top-left water component represents the dye-vat. Traditional Chinese dyes were made by soaking plant materials in water - indigo, madder, gardenia all leached colour into the bath. The water signals that dyeing is fundamentally an aqueous process.

semantic

九 jiǔ

nine; many times

Top-right 九 (nine) functions semantically as 'many times, repeatedly'. Traditional dyeing required dipping the fabric multiple times - nine repetitions for deep, fast colours. The composition reads as 'soak the wood-dyestuff repeatedly in water'.