zhěn
adjective

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) (of plants) growing thickly; densely clustered
  2. 2 (classical) fine and close-grained

Examples

Zhěn lǐ ér jiān.
The fine-grained wood is dense and tough.

Tips

history
is not used independently in modern Chinese. It described densely clustered plants and, by extension, a fine close grain; it overlaps in sense with (close-textured) and appears only in classical descriptions.
register
Archaic and literary; modern Chinese uses 茂密 for dense growth and for fine grain.

Components

radical
growing grain
(standing grain) is the meaning radical, since the word originally described densely clustered crop plants.
phonetic
zhēn
true; real
supplies the sound, with the tone shifting from to ; it is the same phonetic in and .

Stroke Order

zhěn