wǎn / guǎn / guān
adjective #96,611

Meanings

  1. 1 (literary) smiling

Examples

Tā wǎn ěr yíxiào, shénme yě méi shuō.
She gave a faint smile and said nothing.
Tīng le zhèhuà, lǎorén bùjīn wǎn ěr.
Hearing this, the old man could not help smiling.

Tips

usage
This reading appears almost only in and 一笑 (to give a slight, gentle smile) — a refined, literary expression. Don't confuse it with the city reading in Dongguan or the plant reading .

Components

radical
cǎo
grass; plant (top radical)
The grass radical on top. Its original meaning was a marsh sedge; the 'smile' and place-name uses are borrowed sounds, so here the plant radical is historical rather than descriptive.
phonetic
wán
complete (phonetic)
Below the cap, supplies the sound. Its reading shifts across the three pronunciations of this character (wǎn / guǎn / guān), so the phonetic only loosely fixes the sound.

Stroke Order

wǎn