烷

wán
noun #29,019

Meanings

  1. 1 alkane (chemistry)
  2. 2 saturated hydrocarbon

Examples

HSK 6
Jiǎwán shì zuì jiǎndān de wán lèi huàhéwù.
Methane is the simplest alkane compound.
HSK 7-9
Shíyóu zhōng hányǒu dàliàng de wántīng.
Petroleum contains large amounts of alkanes.

Tips

memory
The fire radical (火) on the left hints at flammability - alkanes like methane and propane are all combustible fuels.

Components

radical
火 huǒ
fire
Left fire radical, the indexing element - pictograph of a flame with rising tongues. Marks 烷 as a combustible: alkanes are the saturated hydrocarbons that fuel modern flames. Same family as 烧, 烤, 灯, plus the organic-chemistry coinages 烯, 炔, 烃.
phonetic
完 wán
to finish; complete
Right 完 supplies the sound directly: wán → wán. Strong semantic flavour too - 完 means 'complete, saturated,' which is exactly what alkanes are at the molecular level (every carbon bond fully filled with hydrogen). The phonetic encodes the chemistry. Same phonetic in 玩, 院, 莞.

Stroke Order

烷 wán