锦 (jǐn): brocade

Meanings

1 brocade
2 embroidered or woven silk fabric
3 splendid; brilliant

Characters

锦

jǐn

brocade / ornate woven silk

Examples

HSK 7-9

这件旗袍用的是上等锦缎。

Zhè jiàn qípáo yòng de shì shàngděng jǐnduàn.

This qipao is made from fine brocade.

HSK 7-9

锦上添花，雪中送炭，哪个更难？

Jǐnshàngtiānhuā, xuězhōngsòngtàn, nǎ ge gèng nán?

Which is harder: adding flowers to brocade, or sending charcoal in the snow?

Tips

culture

锦 appears in many classical idioms: 锦上添花 (add flowers to brocade, to make something already good even better), 衣锦还乡 (return home in silken robes, to return in glory). It symbolizes beauty, wealth, and excellence in classical Chinese.

Components

radical

钅 jīn

metal (radical form of 金)

Left metal radical, the indexing radical in its 5-stroke side form. It carries a sense of value and brightness: 锦 is silk so finely woven and dyed that it shines like burnished metal. The radical anchors it in the precious-substance family alongside 银, 铜, 钢; here it specifically connotes the gold-thread brocade of imperial robes.

semantic

帛 bó

silk; silken cloth

Right side 帛, white silk on a frame, the prototypical undyed luxury cloth. Combined with the metal radical, the picture is silk shot through with metallic gold thread, the definition of 锦, court-grade brocade. The phonetic value has drifted heavily (bó to jǐn), so this works more as a compound ideograph than a phono-semantic pair.