蚖 (yuán) · Protura (soil-dwelling primitive hexapod)

Meanings

1 Protura (soil-dwelling primitive hexapod)
2 variant of 螈, salamander/newt

Characters

蚖

yuán

Protura; (archaic) venomous snake / salamander

Examples

HSK 7-9

蚖是一类极微小的原始六足动物，生活在落叶层里。

Yuán shì yí lèi jí wēixiǎo de yuánshǐ liù zú dòngwù, shēnghuó zài luòyè céng lǐ.

Protura are a group of tiny primitive hexapods that live in the leaf litter.

HSK 7-9

古籍里有时用'蚖'字来指毒蛇或火蜥蜴。

Gǔjí lǐ yǒushí yòng ' yuán ' zì lái zhǐ dúshé huò huǒxīyì.

Old texts sometimes use the character 蚖 to refer to venomous snakes or salamanders.

Tips

usage

Modern biological usage: 蚖 = Protura, a class of minute wingless hexapods. Classical usage (pre-modern texts): a venomous snake, or as a variant of 螈 (salamander/newt). Context determines the meaning.

Components

radical

虫 chóng

insect; worm

Left insect radical - originally a pictograph of a coiled snake or worm. Anchors 蚖 in the family of small creeping creatures: 蛇 snake, 虾 shrimp, 蚂 ant, 蜂 bee. Marks the primary sense - Protura, a tiny soil-dwelling hexapod, and the salamander variant - as belonging to the lower-fauna world.

phonetic

元 yuán

first; origin

Right 元 supplies the sound - yuán exactly, no shift. Pure phonetic loan; the 'origin / primary' meaning of 元 plays no semantic role here. Same phonetic gives 园 garden, 远 far, 沅 a river name, 阮 a surname. The pairing produces a clean phono-semantic compound: bug-radical telling you the category, 元 telling you the reading.