Chinese Character Wiki

巖

yán

cliff

Phonosemantic compound. 山 represents the meaning and 嚴 represents the sound.

Components
山 meaning component

山  Meaning component

shān

  

mountain

嚴 sound component

嚴  Sound component

yán

  

strict

Evolution

巖 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
巖 Seal script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Seal script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
巖 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
巖 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

𰎠 (巖) 

yán

cliff, precipice; cave, grotto

岩 (巖) 

yán

variant of 岩[yán]

Most common words with 巖
Freq.
Word
Meaning

岩

cliff

岩石

rock

岩浆

lava

熔岩

lava

花岗岩

granite

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ŋ]ˤr[a]m (< uvular?)

ngaem

yán

rocky, lofty


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 5.4301% of movies

1962nd most common character in movies

1423rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

22

Simplified

𰎠

Unicode

U+5DD6

Shuowen

“巖，岸也。从山，嚴聲。”


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