蟠 (pán): to coil

Meanings

1 to coil
2 to curl around (of a dragon or snake)

Characters

蟠

pán

to coil; curled up

Examples

一条蛟龙蟠于山顶之上。

Yītiáo jiāo lóng pán yú shāndǐng zhīshàng.

A dragon was coiled atop the mountain.

蟠龙纹是中国古代常见的装饰图案。

Pán lóng wén shì Zhōngguó gǔdài chángjiàn de zhuāngshì tú'àn.

The coiled-dragon motif is a common decorative pattern in ancient China.

Tips

register

蟠 is primarily a classical/literary character. In modern Chinese it appears mostly in set compounds such as 蟠龙 (pánlóng, coiled dragon) and 蟠桃 (pántáo, the immortality peach in Chinese mythology).

Components

radical

虫 chóng

insect; reptile; creature

虫 is the indexing creature-radical, originally a cobra silhouette and broadly covering insects, snakes, dragons, and small crawling things. In 蟠 it places the word in the dragon-coil family — 蟠 most often describes a great serpent or dragon curled and waiting (蟠龙).

phonetic

番 fān

turn; foreign; sequence

番 (fān) gives the sound — initial preserved, rime drifted to -án then -án with tone shift to pán. Same phonetic also drives 播 (sow), 翻 (flip), 潘 (a surname). Faint flavour of turning or coiling round and round suits a creature winding upon itself.