娥 (é) · beautiful woman

Meanings

1 beautiful woman
2 good; beautiful
3 name element used in female names

Characters

娥

é

beautiful; good (literary); used in female names

Examples

HSK 6

娥眉在古诗中常用来比喻美丽的眉毛。

É méi zài gǔshī zhōng cháng yòng lái bǐyù měilì de méimao.

Moth eyebrows are often used in classical poetry to describe beautiful arched eyebrows.

HSK 7-9

嫦娥是中国神话中的月亮女神。

Cháng'é shì Zhōngguó shénhuà zhōng de yuèliang nǚshén.

Chang'e is the moon goddess in Chinese mythology.

Tips

culture

娥 is famously associated with 嫦娥 (Chang'e), the lunar goddess who drank the elixir of immortality and fled to the moon. China named its lunar exploration program after her.

register

The adjective sense good or beautiful is literary and bound, surviving chiefly in names and set expressions rather than in everyday speech.

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman; female

Woman radical on the left, the indexing component. Pictograph of a kneeling woman with arms folded - the classical posture of respectful waiting. It marks 娥 as a female-specific term (beautiful woman, name-element for girls) and pairs it with the family 妹 sister, 姑 aunt, 姐 elder sister, 娟 graceful.

phonetic

我 wǒ

I; me (originally: a halberd)

Right side 我 supplies the sound with a regular shift wǒ to é (an old initial alternation). Same phonetic appears in 鹅 goose, 蛾 moth, 饿 hungry, 俄 sudden - a tight e-family. Use 我 here as a sound key only; the 'I/me' meaning is incidental.