làn

rotten

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
火 meaning component

  Meaning component

huǒ

  

fire

闌 sound component

  Sound component

lán

  

door screen

Evolution

爛 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
爛 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
爛 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

làn

rotten, spoiled, decayed; soft; mushy; well-cooked and soft; to rot; to decompose; rotten; worn out; chaotic; messy; utterly; thoroughly; crappy; bad

Most common words with 爛
Freq.
Word
Meaning

soft

灿烂

to glitter

腐烂

to rot

破烂

worn-out

烂摊子

terrible mess

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[r]ˤan-s

lanH

làn

cooked until soft


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 36.7772% of movies

1104th most common character in movies

1754th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

21

Simplified

Unicode

U+721B

Shuowen

“爤,孰也。从火,蘭聲。燗,或从閒。”


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