qiàn
verb #13,007

Meanings

  1. 1 to inlay
  2. 2 to embed

Examples

HSK 7-9
Jièzhi shàng qiàn zhe yì kē zuànshí.
A diamond is embedded in the ring.

Tips

usage
In tech contexts, 嵌入 means 'to embed' and 嵌入式 means 'embedded (system)'.

Components

radical
shān
mountain
Mountain radical at the top - the indexing radical, pictograph of three peaks. The classical sense of was 'a deep mountain hollow,' a recess cut into a rock face. From that came the modern verb 'to inlay, to set into a hollow' - exactly how a jeweller fits a stone into the carved-out socket of a setting. Same radical caps (cliff), (ridge), (peak).
semantic
gān
sweet
Lower-left - sweet, pictograph of a mouth with a dot of food held on the tongue. Pure semantic contribution in this fused right side: it pairs with to form an old phonetic + stack used in 's traditional reading. Contributes the rounded, held-in-place sense that fits something nestled into a hollow.
phonetic
qiàn
to owe; lack
Lower-right supplies the sound qiàn directly - a person bent forward with an open mouth, originally 'to yawn.' Same phonetic feeds (apology), (admire). Together with above it forms the right-hand stack of , riding the mountain radical above to give 'a deep nesting hollow set in a mountain.'

Stroke Order

qiàn