缅 (miǎn): distant; remote

Meanings

1 distant; remote
2 (abbr.) Myanmar / Burma

Characters

缅

miǎn

distant; Myanmar

Examples

他缅怀逝去的亲人。

Tā miǎnhuái shìqù de qīnrén.

He fondly remembers his departed relatives.

中缅边境贸易很活跃。

Zhōng Miǎn biānjìng màoyì hěn huóyuè.

China–Myanmar border trade is very active.

Tips

usage

On its own 缅 rarely appears in modern speech. You meet it in compounds: 缅怀 (miǎnhuái, to remember fondly), 缅甸 (Miǎndiàn, Myanmar), and as the country abbreviation 缅 in headlines like 中缅 (China–Myanmar).

memory

The 糸 (silk) radical hints at 'a long thread reaching far away' — fitting for both 'remote' and the long border with Myanmar.

Components

radical

纟 sī

silk; thread

纟 is the left-side simplified silk radical (糸 in standalone form). It marks 缅 as a thread-and-distance word — the original sense was a fine, far-stretched thread, from which the senses remote and to recall (mind reaching back) developed. Family: 绵 (cotton), 线 (line), 绳 (rope).

phonetic

面 miàn

face; surface

面 (miàn) supplies the sound — initial preserved, rime shifted -iàn to -iǎn with tone change. The same phonetic also drives 棉 (cotton plant), reinforcing the silk-thread imagery in 缅. Used today mostly for Burma (缅甸) and the literary verb to recall (缅怀).