粲 (càn): (classical) bright; brilliant

Meanings

1 (classical) bright; brilliant
2 (classical) a broad smile (in 粲然); fine polished rice

Characters

粲

càn

bright; broad smile; fine rice

Examples

军人粲然皆笑。

Jūnrén cànrán jiē xiào.

The soldiers all broke into broad smiles.

Tips

history

Not used alone in modern Chinese; it survives in literary words — 粲然 (beaming brightly) and 以博一粲 (to raise a smile). It shares its sound with 灿 (brilliant) and 璨 (gleaming), and the bottom is the grain radical 米.

register

Literary only; everyday Chinese uses 灿烂 for 'brilliant' and 笑 for 'smile'.

Components

radical

米 mǐ

rice; grain

The grain radical 米 at the foot recalls the original sense — finely polished white rice — from which the 'bright, gleaming' meaning of 粲 grew.

phonetic

歺 è

splintered bone (phonetic top, left)

The upper-left element, together with the hand beside it, forms the 粲-phonetic shared with 灿 and 璨. It does not carry its own bone meaning here.

phonetic

又 yòu

hand

The 又 hand sits to the upper right, completing the phonetic block that pairs with the bone graph above the grain radical; it lends shape, not meaning.