Jiǎng
popculture #41,838

Meanings

  1. 1 a Chinese surname
  2. 2 wild rice plant (archaic)

Examples

Tā xìng Jiǎng, wǒmen gāi jiào tā Jiǎng xiānsheng.
He has the surname Jiang; we should call him Mr. Jiang.
Jiǎng Jièshí shì guómín dǎng de lǐngxiù.
Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of the Kuomintang.
Wǒmen bān yǒu hǎojǐ gè xìng Jiǎng de tóngxué.
Several students with the surname Jiang are in our class.

Tips

usage
Today this is almost only a surname, read Jiǎng. Originally it named 茭白 (wild rice, water bamboo); that botanical sense, read jiāng, is archaic and rarely seen.

Components

radical
cǎo
grass; plant
The grass radical on top reflects the character's original meaning, a water plant (wild rice). The everyday surname use keeps the radical even though the plant sense is now archaic.
phonetic
jiāng
will; general
Sits below the grass radical and supplies the sound: shifted to Jiǎng. It contributes no meaning here, only the phonetic value.

In Pop Culture

蒋介石 Jiǎng Jièshí
Chiang Kai-shek
Leader of the Republic of China and the Kuomintang who fought the civil war against the Communists, then ruled Taiwan from 1949 until his death in 1975.

Stroke Order

Jiǎng