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澹

dàn
adjective #97,953

Meanings

  1. 1 (literary) tranquil; placid; calm
  2. 2 (literary) of rippling water

Examples

他心境恬澹，像无波的静水。
Tā xīnjìng tián dàn, xiàng wúbō de jìngshuǐ.
His mood was calm and detached, like still water without ripples.

Tips

history
澹 is largely literary today; in modern writing the calm sense is normally carried by 淡 (bland / faint) and 恬 (placid). It also has a rarer reading tán used only in the place name 澹台 (a compound surname).
register
Literary register — appears in classical prose, the phrase 澹泊 (indifferent to fame and gain), and etymology notes, not in everyday speech.

Components

radical
氵 shuǐ
water
氵 is the water radical 水 in left-side form, evoking the original sense of gently rippling water.
phonetic
詹 zhān
verbose; to look up at
詹 supplies the sound (drifted to dàn). The same phonetic series gives 瞻 (to gaze), 檐 (eaves), and 蟾 (toad).

Stroke Order

澹 dàn