piān
adjective #61,009

Meanings

  1. 1 to flit; to flutter lightly
  2. 2 graceful and nimble

Examples

Húdié zài huā cóng zhōng piānpiān qǐwǔ.
Butterflies fluttered gracefully among the flowers.
Tā shì yí wèi fēngdù piānpiān de qīngnián.
He is an elegant and graceful young man.
Shùyè cóng zhītóu piān rán luòxià.
Leaves drifted down lightly from the branches.

Tips

usage
Mostly doubled as 翩翩 for graceful, light movement (a dancer, a butterfly) or, in 风度翩翩, for a refined, elegant manner. The single appears in literary words like ('lightly, nimbly').

Components

radical
feather; wings
The feather radical on the right gives the meaning: the word is about wings beating, hence the sense of light, fluttering flight that later extended to graceful human movement.
phonetic
biǎn
flat
Supplies the sound on the left: biǎn shifted to piān. It carries no 'flat' meaning here, only the phonetic value.

Stroke Order

piān