腺

xiàn
noun #17,313

Meanings

  1. 1 gland

Examples

HSK 7-9
Jiǎzhuàngxiàn shì réntǐ zhòngyào de nèifēnmì xiàn.
The thyroid is an important endocrine gland in the human body.
HSK 7-9
Tā de línbā xiàn zhǒng le.
His lymph glands are swollen.

Tips

usage
腺 rarely appears alone - it's almost always part of a compound: 甲状腺 (thyroid), 前列腺 (prostate), 淋巴腺 (lymph gland), 汗腺 (sweat gland), 唾液腺 (salivary gland).

Components

radical
⺼ ròu
flesh; body (radical form of 肉)
Meat-flesh radical on the left - side-form of 肉 used for anatomy characters (脸 face, 胸 chest, 脏 organ, 肝 liver, 肌 muscle). Visually identical to the moon radical 月 but semantically distinct. Marks 腺 as a body part: a gland is a piece of secretory tissue, classified flesh.
phonetic
泉 quán
spring; source of water (here phonetic + semantic)
Right 泉 supplies sound and meaning. Sound: quán drifts to xiàn via an old palatal shift. Meaning: 泉 originally pictures water bubbling from rock, a 'flowing source.' The combination is brilliantly precise - a gland is a 'fleshy spring,' an organ that secretes a flow inside the body. 腺 was coined in the 19th century to translate Western 'gland.'

Stroke Order

腺 xiàn