舛 (chuǎn): contradictory; in disorder

Meanings

1 contradictory; in disorder
2 (literary) misfortune; mishap

Characters

舛

chuǎn

contradictory; misfortune

Examples

命途多舛。

Mìng tú duō chuǎn.

A life path full of misfortune. (set phrase from Wang Bo)

他一生命运多舛，但从未放弃。

Tā yīshēng mìngyùn duō chuǎn, dàn cóngwèi fàngqì.

His life was full of setbacks, but he never gave up.

Tips

register

舛 is purely literary in modern Chinese — you only meet it in the four-character expression 命途多舛/命运多舛 ('a life beset by misfortune'), drawn from Wang Bo's 滕王阁序. Outside that idiom it appears only in classical and editorial writing.

history

Originally a pictograph of two feet pointing in opposite directions — visual symbol for contradiction and disorder, hence the extended sense 'gone wrong'.

Components

pictograph

舛 chuǎn

opposed feet; contradictory

Self-pictograph — two feet pointing in opposite directions, an ancient ideograph for contradiction and disorder. 舛 is itself Kangxi radical #136, the "opposing feet" radical, indexing 舞 dance and 舜 Emperor Shun. The right foot has no standalone modern character; the unit is treated as atomic.

Radical

Opposing Kangxi #136

The 'opposing-feet' radical. A compound ideograph of two feet facing in different directions — the visual root of 'contradiction' and 'mishap'. Almost no productivity in modern Chinese: 舞 (dance) is the one high-frequency resident, where the two feet read as moving legs. Mostly a structural slot in dictionary indexing.