xiān
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 wild leek; mountain garlic
  2. 2 slender; fine; minute

Examples

Gǔjí zhōng, xiān zhǐ yī zhǒng shēng yú shān zhōng de xìcháng yě jiǔ.
In ancient texts 韱 referred to a slender wild leek growing in the mountains.

Tips

register
is essentially obsolete. It does not appear in modern Mandarin outside of paleography and dictionary entries on rare characters. Two senses survive in classical sources: a kind of wild leek or mountain onion, and an extended adjectival use meaning 'slender, fine, minute' (often paired in the compound 韱察 'examining minute details'). The modern character for 'slender / fine' is (traditional ), which derives historically from plus a silk radical.

Components

pictograph
xiān
wild leek; slender
The top is a doubled-cross shape originally depicting two thin blades or sprouts; the bottom is (leek — itself a pictograph of leek stalks rising from the ground). Together: two slender leeks side by side = the mountain leek, slender and fine. Indexed under Kangxi #179 . The 'slender / minute' adjectival sense extended from the plant's thin blades and was eventually replaced in modern Chinese by .

Filed under radical (jiǔ, #179) by convention. is not a separate component in , so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order

xiān