靛 (diàn): indigo (dye)

Meanings

1 indigo (dye)
2 indigo blue (the colour, between blue and violet)

Characters

靛

diàn

indigo

Examples

传统的靛蓝染料提取自蓼蓝的叶子。

Chuántǒng de diànlán rǎnliào tíqǔ zì liǎolán de yèzi.

Traditional indigo dye comes from the leaves of the Polygonum tinctorium plant.

彩虹的七种颜色中，靛色在蓝和紫之间。

Cǎihóng de qīzhǒng yánsè zhōng, diàn sè zài lán hé zǐ zhījiān.

In the rainbow's seven colours, indigo sits between blue and violet.

贵州的苗族村寨至今仍用靛蓝染传统蜡染布。

Guìzhōu de Miáozú cūnzhài zhìjīn réng yòng diànlán rǎn chuántǒng làrǎnbù.

Guizhou's Miao villages still use indigo to dye their traditional batik cloth.

Tips

usage

Two everyday compounds. 靛蓝 is 'indigo' (both the dye and the colour — interchangeable with 蓝靛 and 靛青). 靛 standalone names the colour, especially when listing rainbow bands. Cultural note: the chengyu 青出于蓝 ('blue comes from indigo and is bluer than indigo') describes a student surpassing their teacher — the blue dye is 靛, extracted from the indigo plant 蓝.

memory

Top 青 (blue-green colour) + bottom 定 (to fix / set, also supplying the sound diàn from dìng) = the colour 'set' or 'fixed' onto cloth = the dye, indigo. A clean phono-semantic mnemonic: blue-green-radical + fix-sound = fixed dye colour.

Components

radical

青 qīng

blue-green; nature's blue

Left blue-green radical (Kangxi #174) — the colour family spanning blue, green, and dark cyan in classical Chinese. Anchors the meaning: 靛 is a specific dye-colour within the 青 family. Other family members: 静 (still — used as phonetic), 靖 (peaceful).

phonetic

定 dìng

to fix; to set; supplying the sound

Right phonetic 定 — supplies the sound (dìng → diàn, a minor vowel shift). A semantic resonance comes free: the dye is what 'fixes' colour onto cloth. The same phonetic anchors 锭 (ingot, an item fixed in shape) and 腚 (buttocks, dialectal).