茜

qiàn
#3,091 most
frequent character
(bound form) Indian madder

Character breakdown

Source: Make Me a Hanzi.

茜 has 艹 (vegetation, plants) as its meaning part and 西 xī as a sound part. It first meant 'madder,' a plant. That grew to 'alizarin red,' a dye from it. Read xī, it was borrowed for its sound to write foreign names.

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Same Characters, Different Readings

茜xī
used in the transliteration of people's names

Homophones

HSK 5
欠qiàn
deficient, owe, to lack, yawn

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