• soot;
  • coal;

Etymology

A phono-semantic compound composed of:

— semantic component meaning “fire”;

— phonetic component indicating the sound (매 / méi).

The character originally referred to black residue produced by fire, which extended to mean coal.


Semantic development:

- soot from burning;

- black residue of fire;

- coal as a fuel source.

Usage in Korean

석탄 (石炭) — coal (common term; not using 煤 directly)

매연 (煤煙) — soot; exhaust smoke

Additional notes

煤 is especially important in industrial and energy contexts, referring to coal as a major fuel.


Related characters:

— charcoal; coal

— smoke

그을음
geueureum
mae
Kangxi radical:86, + 9
Strokes:13
Unicode:U+7164
Cangjie input:
  • 火廿一木 (FTMD)
Composition:
  • ⿰ 火 某

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

Creative commons license
The content on this page provided under the CC BY-NC-SA license.