玄 (xuán): mysterious

Meanings

1 mysterious
2 profound
3 unreliable

Characters

玄

xuán

mysterious; profound

Examples

这件事太玄了，我不信。

Zhè jiàn shì tài xuán le, wǒ bù xìn.

This is too far-fetched; I don't believe it.

他说的话玄乎乎的。

Tā shuō dehuà xuánhū hū de.

What he said sounds dubious and mysterious.

Tips

usage

In modern colloquial Chinese, 玄 often means 'dubious' or 'unreliable' (太玄了 = sounds fishy). In classical/philosophical contexts, it means 'profound' or 'mysterious' (玄学 = metaphysics).

culture

玄 is a key concept in Daoism. The opening of the 道德经 says 玄之又玄 (mysterious and more mysterious), referring to the ineffable nature of the Dao.

Components

pictograph

玄 xuán

dark; mysterious; profound

Pictograph of a hank of silk thread twisted and hung for dyeing — top stroke the cord it hangs from, doubled loops below the bundle. From the dim blue-black of freshly dyed silk came 'dark, deep, mysterious,' and from there the Daoist sense of 玄 as the unknowable depth of the cosmos. Self-radical.

Radical

Dark; Profound Kangxi #95

A tiny radical group with very low productivity — most characters traditionally listed under it (e.g. 率) have moved to other indexing radicals in modern dictionaries. Useful mainly as a hint that the canonical 玄 itself carries Daoist and dyeing-related meanings (originally the dark red-black of dyed silk).