笺 (jiān): letter paper

Measure Word

一张笺 zhāng

Meanings

1 letter paper
2 writing paper
3 annotation
4 short note

Characters

笺

jiān

letter paper / annotation

Examples

她在花笺上写了一首诗。

Tā zài huājiān shàng xiěle yī shǒu shī.

She wrote a poem on flower-patterned letter paper.

古人常用彩笺传情。

Gǔrén cháng yòng cǎijiān chuánqíng.

Ancient people often used colored letter paper to convey their feelings.

Tips

culture

笺 carries elegant, literary connotations — it appears in compounds like 信笺 'letter paper', 花笺 'patterned writing paper', and 便笺 'memo / sticky note'. The Tang-Song poet Xue Tao (薛涛) is famous for inventing 薛涛笺, a small crimson letter paper still imitated today.

usage

Also functions as a verb in classical contexts meaning 'to annotate', as in 笺注 (jiānzhù), commentary added to a classical text — closely linked to scholarly traditions of textual exegesis.