烟 (yān) · cigarette; tobacco

Measure Word

一根烟 gēn

Meanings

1 cigarette; tobacco
2 smoke; fumes

Characters

烟

yān

smoke; cigarette

Contains the fire radical 火, since smoke is produced by burning.

Examples

HSK 4

请不要在这里吸烟。

Qǐng búyào zài zhèlǐ xīyān.

Please don't smoke here.

HSK 4

厨房里都是烟。

Chúfáng lǐ dōu shì yān.

The kitchen is full of smoke.

HSK 7-9

他戒烟了。

Tā jièyān le.

He quit smoking.

Tips

usage

吸烟 or 抽烟 both mean 'to smoke'. 戒烟 means to quit smoking. 二手烟 is secondhand smoke.

Components

radical

火 huǒ

fire

Left fire radical - the indexing component. Smoke is what fire produces, so the fire radical makes the meaning literal. The simplified 烟 substitutes 因 for the traditional phonetic but keeps 火 as the unmistakable semantic anchor. Same family as 灯 (lamp), 烤 (roast), 炉 (stove), 烧 (burn).

phonetic

因 yīn

cause; because

Right 因 supplies the sound - yīn drifted to yān through nasal-vowel shift. Chosen by the 1956 reform to replace the harder-to-write traditional phonetic. Purely phonetic role here; the 'cause' meaning has no semantic connection to smoke beyond a serendipitous 'cause of fire' coincidence.