莞 (guān): (literary) a kind of rush or se…

Meanings

1 (literary) a kind of rush or sedge used for weaving mats

Characters

莞

guān

(literary) a kind of rush or sedge used for weaving mats

Examples

古人用莞草编席。

Gǔrén yòng guān cǎo biān xí.

The ancients wove sleeping mats from this rush.

莞席在古代是常见的家居用品。

Guān xí zài gǔdài shì chángjiàn de jiājū yòngpǐn.

Rush mats were a common household item in ancient times.

Tips

history

The oldest sense: a soft marsh rush, also called 'water onion', whose stems were woven into sleeping mats (莞席). This original plant meaning is why the character carries the grass radical, even though the smile and city readings are now far more common.

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; plant (top radical)

The grass radical 艹 on top. Its original meaning was a marsh sedge; the 'smile' and place-name uses are borrowed sounds, so here the plant radical is historical rather than descriptive.

phonetic

完 wán

complete (phonetic)

Below the cap, 完 supplies the sound. Its reading shifts across the three pronunciations of this character (wǎn / guǎn / guān), so the phonetic only loosely fixes the sound.