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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

眼

yǎn
eye (Classifier: 隻／只 m c; 雙／双 m c; 對／对 c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • radical 目
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ŋrɯːnʔ): semantic 目 (“eye”) + phonetic 艮 (OC *kɯːns).

Derived from Etymology 2 (Sagart, 1999). Displaced common Sino-Tibetan 目 (OC *muɡ, “eye”) in many dialects.

Etymology 2

Unknown.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”
  • soundChinese艮 “one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦, symbolizing mountains. (☶)”
    • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”

Words built on it: 眼睛, 眼前, 眼光

Meanings

character
  1. eye (Classifier: 隻／只 m c; 雙／双 m c; 對／对 c)
  2. to see; to view; to see ... in person
  3. to keep sight of; to monitor; to watch
  4. sight; vision
  5. Classifier for actions of the eye: glance; glimpse
  6. to testify; to witness

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

眼：目也。从目𥃩聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 動物的視覺器官。 例：眼睛、慧眼、眼明手快　◎◎
  2. 孔穴、孔洞。 例：針眼
  3. 關鍵、要點。 例：字眼、節骨眼
  4. 量詞。計算眼睛看的次數的單位。 例：多看兩眼、瞪了他一眼

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

How 眼 was written 字形演變

  1. 眼 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 眼 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
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 眼