贞媛

貞媛
zhēnyuán
noun #32,537

Meanings

  1. 1 (literary) chaste and virtuous woman
  2. 2 a noble lady of upright character (also used as a Korean female given name 정원 Jung-won)

Examples

Gǔdài wénrén cháng yǐ zhēnyuán bǐyù pǐngé gāoshàng de nǚzǐ.
Ancient literati often used 贞媛 to praise women of high character.
Zhēnyuán shì zhè bù hánjù nǚ zhǔjué de míngzi.
Jung-won is the name of the female lead in this Korean drama.

Tips

register
Literary in Chinese — you'll meet 贞媛 in classical poetry and old prose, not modern conversation. The Xinhua dictionary glosses it as 贞洁妇女 'a chaste and virtuous woman'. Today the same characters most often appear as a Korean given name (정원 Jung-won) in K-drama subtitles.
memory
'chaste/upright' + 'beautiful/elegant lady' — both characters were valued in classical Confucian descriptions of women. (yuán) on its own appears in (míngyuán, 'socialite'), preserving the old 'noble lady' sense.

Stroke Order

zhēn
yuán