婵 (chán) · graceful; lovely (of a woman)

Meanings

1 graceful; lovely (of a woman)
2 the moon (in 婵娟)

Characters

婵

chán

graceful; lovely (of a woman)

Examples

HSK 7-9

但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。

Dànyuàn rén chángjiǔ, qiānlǐ gòng chánjuān.

May we live long and share the same bright moon, though far apart.

HSK 7-9

那女子体态婵娟。

Nà nǚzǐ tǐtài chánjuān.

The girl moved with a slender, graceful air.

Tips

history

Used in 婵娟 (chánjuān), which means a graceful beauty and, by extension, the bright moon. The line 千里共婵娟 is from a famous Mid-Autumn poem by the Song poet Su Shi, wishing distant loved ones can share the same moon.

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman; female

The woman radical 女 on the left fits the meaning: a graceful, beautiful woman, the original sense before it came to also mean the moon.

phonetic

单 dān

single (phonetic)

单 (dān, single) sits on the right as the sound element, its reading shifted to chán. The same phonetic appears in 蝉 (cicada) and 禅 (Zen).

Stroke Order

婵 chán

Related Words

婵媛 chányuán

graceful and elegant (of a woman) / emotionally entangled / drawn to one another / interwoven / continuous

千里共婵娟 qiān lǐ gòng chánjuān

though a thousand miles apart, we share the same bright moon / distant loved ones united under the moonlight / famous closing line of Su Shi's Mid-Autumn ci poem

全红婵 Quán Hóngchán

Quan Hongchan (Chinese Olympic diving prodigy, born 2007)

产妇 chǎnfù #23,223

woman in childbirth / woman who has recently given birth / parturient woman

妇 fù #6,647

woman; married woman / wife

雅 yǎ #4,938

elegant / refined / graceful

宿 xiù #4,852

constellation; lunar mansion / one of the 28 stations the moon passes through in traditional Chinese astronomy

婆 pó #4,773

grandmother; old woman / mother-in-law (husband's mother)

月亮 yuèliang HSK 3 #4,508

the moon

优雅 yōuyǎ HSK 7-9 #4,063

elegant / graceful / refined