畔 (pàn) · side, edge, bank (of a river, field, etc.)

Meanings

1 side
2 edge
3 bank (of a river, field, etc.)

Characters

畔

pàn

side; edge; boundary (literary)

Examples

HSK 6

田畔的小路通向远处的村庄。

Tián pàn de xiǎolù tōngxiàng yuǎnchù de cūnzhuāng.

The path at the edge of the field leads to a village in the distance.

HSK 7-9

他们坐在河畔，看着落日余晖。

Tāmen zuò zài hépàn, kàn zhe luòrì yúhuī.

They sat by the riverside watching the last glow of the setting sun.

HSK 7-9

湖畔的树林在秋天变得五彩缤纷。

Húpàn de shùlín zài qiūtiān biàn de wǔcǎi-bīnfēn.

The forest by the lakeside becomes a riot of colors in autumn.

Tips

register

畔 is a literary bound form, almost always used attached to a noun (e.g. 河畔 riverside, 湖畔 lakeside, 田畔 field edge). It rarely stands alone in modern spoken Chinese.

Components

radical

田 tián

field; farmland

Left field radical, a top-down picture of a plot divided by paths into four squares. Indexes 畔 in the agriculture family with 畦 garden bed, 界 boundary, 略 outline. The original sense of 畔 is the raised earthen ridge marking off one field from the next.

phonetic

半 bàn

half

Right side 半 gives the sound bàn to pàn with a regular b/p shift. 半 ('half', from splitting an ox down the middle) also adds quiet semantic flavour: a field boundary is the line that halves one plot from its neighbour. Same phonetic in 伴 companion, 拌 to mix, 叛 to rebel.