sàn, sǎn
scatter
Originally written as 𢽳, which depicted trees (林) being struck (攵) to make things fall off the tree and scatter. The character 斝 was sometimes confused with the character 散, and a corruption of it visually similar to 月 was added.
Components
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Component uses
Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[s]ˤa[n]ʔ | sanX | sǎn | scattered (adj.) |
*mə-sˤa[n]ʔ-s | sanH | sàn | scatter (v.t.) |
Statistics
HSK level 4
Appears in 37.6582% of movies
1074th most common character in movies
866th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 12 |
Unicode | U+6563 |
Shuowen | “,雜肉也。从肉,聲。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.345-346
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