xiān
adjective #17,204

Meanings

  1. 1 fine; delicate; minute
  2. 2 fiber

Examples

HSK 4
Tā yǒu yī shuāng xiānxì de shǒu.
She has slender, delicate hands.
HSK 7-9
Zhèzhǒng miànliào de xiānwéi hěn róuruǎn.
The fiber of this fabric is very soft.

Tips

mistakes
has two pronunciations: xiān (fine, delicate, fiber) and qiàn (boatman's tow-rope, as in 纤夫). The xiān reading is far more common.

Components

radical
silk (radical form of 糸)
Left-side silk radical, the simplified three-stroke form of (a twist of silken threads). The indexing radical - is a fine fibre, by extension anything slender (纤维 fibre, 纤细 slim). The simplified merged two traditional characters: (tow-rope) and (delicate), both silk-rooted. Same family: to sew, rope.
phonetic
qiān
thousand
Right side - pictograph of a person with a horizontal marker, borrowed for 'thousand.' Supplies the qiàn reading (tow-rope) directly and xiān (delicate) by old palatalisation. The phonetic adds flavour: a thousand fine threads bundled into one strand - the literal makeup of a 纤维 fibre.

Stroke Order

xiān