漢字Kanji · in States & Attributes
玄: mysterious, occultness
Also: black, deep, profound
亠 and 幺 are drawn in
Bronze · Zhou Small seal · Qin Today
Bronze and small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
One reading, and the words that use it
ゲンgen · on'yomi · in compounds
- 玄関げんかんentrance; front door; entryway
- 玄米げんまいunpolished rice; unmilled rice; brown rice
Special readingsThese words are read as a whole, not from the readings above.
- 玄人くろうとexpert; professional; master
Also read くろ, くろい, with no example words in our sources. Words: JMdict, EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogram (指事)
Ideogram (指事), two interwoven threads 幺 and a distinguishing mark 亠 on top. The whole character should represent a rope, as seen in 率 and 弦.
Source: Wiktionary, 玄 (rev. 93443780), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The base kanji for a deep, philosophical blackness—representing the "mysterious" origins of all things.”
Connections
Easy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · xuán
Same form: 玄 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 玄 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 玄 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin xuán most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.