Chinese Character Wiki
宴

yàn

to entertain

Original meaning: 

peace and happiness

Phonosemantic compound. 宀 represents the meaning and 妟 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "peace and happiness". The meaning later shifted to "banquet", "feast", and "to entertain".

Components
宀 meaning component

宀  Meaning component

mián

  

roof

Represents being peaceful at home.

妟 sound component

妟  Sound component

yàn

  

safe

Evolution

宴 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
宴 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

宴  

yàn

to entertain, feast; a feast, banquet; feast; repose

宴 (醼) 

yàn

variant of 宴[yàn]

Most common words with 宴
Freq.
Word
Meaning

宴会

banquet

晚宴

banquet

宴

feast

盛宴

feast

宴席

banquet

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ʔˤe[n]-s

'enH

yàn

feast (n.)


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 11.9173% of movies

1711th most common character in movies

2155th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Unicode

U+5BB4

Shuowen

“宴，安也。从宀，晏聲。”


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