Dong Chinese dictionary

yǎn, yān

to enclose

Original meaning:

to cover

Phonosemantic compound. 盍 represents the meaning and 甲 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "to cover", now written as 掩.

Components

盍 Iconic Remnant component

hé

what? why not?

Depicts a lid. Original form of 蓋.

甲 Sound component

jiǎ

1st heavenly stem, fingernail

奄 and 甲 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.奄 /*ʔ(r)omʔ/
甲 /*[k]ˤr[a]p/

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 甲 than it was in ancient scripts.

Evolution

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

奄

yǎn

ere long; remain, tarry; feeble; suddenly; abruptly; hastily; to cover; to surround

奄

Yǎn

surname Yan

奄

yān

variant of 閹|阉[yān]; to castrate; variant of 淹[yān]; to delay

Most common words with 奄

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	奄奄一息	dying
	奄	suddenly
	气息奄奄	to have only a breath of life (idiom)

Component uses

Meaning component in 4 characters (1 verified)

掩庵腌醃

Sound component in 15 characters (1 verified)

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

陳劍《說“規”等字並論一些特別的形聲字意符》

Original meaning:

Freq.

Word

Meaning