Chinese Character Wiki
嬰

yīng

infant

Original meaning: 

necklace

Depicts a woman (女) wearing shell ornaments (賏) around her neck. 賏 also represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "necklace". The meaning of this character has shifted over time and now means "infant" or "baby".

Components
賏 sound,iconic component

賏  Sound Iconic component

yīng, yìng

  

pearls or shells strung together

Depicts two shells (貝) strung together.

女 iconic component

女  Iconic component

nǚ, rǔ

  

woman

Evolution

嬰 Bronze script Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)

Bronze script

Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
嬰 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
嬰 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
嬰 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

婴 (嬰) 

yīng

baby, infant; bother; infant; baby

Most common words with 嬰
Freq.
Word
Meaning

婴儿

infant

婴

infant

婴幼儿

baby

女婴

female baby

男婴

male baby

Component uses

Sound component in 4 characters (0 verified)

櫻 鸚 纓 瓔

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ʔeŋ

'jieng

yīng

surround; necklace

*ʔeŋ

'jieng

yīng

baby


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 13.7434% of movies

1624th most common character in movies

2115th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

17

Simplified

婴

Unicode

U+5B30

Shuowen

“嬰，頸飾也。从女、賏，賏，其連也。”


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