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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

煙

yān
smoke; mist; vapour (Classifier: 陣／阵 m c; 團／团 m; 縷／缕 m c; 層／层 m c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 火
  • 13 strokes

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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *qiːn): semantic 火 (“fire”) + phonetic 垔 (OC *qin).

Etymology 2

Short for 煙士 /烟士 (jin¹ si⁶⁻², “(card games) ace”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese火 “fire; flame (Classifier: 把 m; 團／团 m)”
  • soundChinese垔 “to block up”
    • soundChinese西 “west; western; occidental”
    • meaningChinese土 “earth; soil”

Words built on it: 烟

Meanings

character
  1. smoke; mist; vapour (Classifier: 陣／阵 m c; 團／团 m; 縷／缕 m c; 層／层 m c)
  2. tobacco (plant)
  3. tobacco product
  4. cigarette (Classifier: 支 m c; 根 m; 飛／飞 c)
  5. opium
  6. soot

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

煙：火气也。从火垔聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 物質燃燒時所產生的氣體。 例：炊煙、煤煙
  2. 東西燃燒而生的煙氣所凝結成的黑灰，常用以製墨。 例：桐煙、鍋煙
  3. 山川間像煙一樣的水氣。 例：雲煙、煙霧
  4. 特指鴉片。 例：煙土、大煙

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 煙 was written 字形演變

  1. 煙 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 煙 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 煙 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 煙