蓝 (lán): blue

Meanings

1 blue

Characters

蓝

lán

blue

Examples

天很蓝。

Tiān hěn lán.

The sky is very blue.

她穿了一件蓝衣服。

Tā chuān le yí jiàn lán yīfu.

She wore a blue outfit.

Tips

history

The character 蓝 has the grass radical (艹) because the original blue dye came from the indigo plant (蓝草). The idiom 青出于蓝而胜于蓝 means 'the student surpasses the teacher' — blue dye extracted from the indigo plant is bluer than the plant itself.

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass (top form of 艸)

Grass radical on top — the indexing semantic. 蓝 originally named the indigo plant, the herb from which deep-blue dye was made, before extending to 'blue' in general. The grass radical anchors the plant origin and joins 蓝 with other dye-and-herb characters: 茶 (tea), 草 (grass), 药 (medicine), 苗 (seedling).

phonetic

监 jiān

supervise; watch (here phonetic)

Bottom component supplies the sound, jiān → lán with full initial drift but rime preserved. 监 is itself a person looking down into a basin of water (the ancient mirror), now meaning 'oversee'. As a phonetic it also drives 篮 lán (basket — the same blue-rime), 览 lǎn (view), 蓝 lán (blue) — a tight lán/jiān cluster.