Chinese Character Wiki
堇

jǐn

clay

Original meaning: 

burn a person alive as a sacrifice

Pictograph of burning a tortured person (𦰩) over fire (火) as sacrifice, now written as 熯. The meaning later shifted to "bake", "dry out", and "clay".

Components
𦰩 sound,iconic component

𦰩  Sound Iconic component

jiān

  

to sigh

Depicts a tortured person sighing.

火 iconic component

火  Iconic component

huǒ

  

fire

Modern form looks like 土, but is unrelated.

Evolution

堇 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
堇 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
堇 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
堇 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

堇  

jǐn

yellow loam; clay; season; few; old variant of 僅|仅[jǐn]; violet (plant)

Most common words with 堇
Freq.
Word
Meaning

堇

clay

三色堇

pansy

堇菜

violet (botany)

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

饉 馑

Sound component in 13 characters (1 verified)

僅 勤 謹 谨 瑾 覲 觐 饉 馑 槿 鄞 廑 厪

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[g]rə[r]

gin

jǐn

time, season

*kə[r]ʔ

kj+nX

jǐn

(a kind of vegetable)

*[g]rə[r]

gin

qín

clay


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

5758th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Unicode

U+5807

Shuowen

“堇，黏土也。从土，从黄省。、皆古文堇。”
Sources

李学勤《字源》p.1198

季旭昇《說文新證》p.912



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