爛 shows how meaning can invert:
fire → brilliance;
excess fire → destruction.
It illustrates how intensity can shift from radiance to ruin.
A strong example of historical semantic change.

Related characters:


to shine brightly, brilliant, radiant

bright, shining, light, clear, obvious

light, radiance, brilliance

to rot, to decay, to decompose, to perish

to be cooked, ripe, done, to ripen, mature, to be skilled, practiced, familiar

to burn, to scorch

fire, heat

 (fire) — semantic component, indicates fire, burning, heat;
闌 (란) — phonetic component.
Originally, 爛 described something intensely burning, brightly shining.

Semantic evolution:
- burning brightly;
- radiant / brilliant;
- overcooked (due to fire);
- spoiled / rotten;
- terrible / awful.

찬란 (燦爛) — brilliant, splendid
부패 (腐爛) — decay, rot

Characters

Words

Vocabulary

Rare and archaic Chinese character

thunderous sound, repeated crashing of thunder

adult male, fourth Heavenly Stem, nail

elder, man of respect, husband, head of a family

three, number 3, third

up, top, first, best

below, under, to descend, to go down

not, no, non-

world, generation, lifetime

unit, individual, single

center, middle, inside

to grasp, to hold, to seize

to string together, to pierce through, a skewer, a series or chain of things

a small round object, pellet, ball, pill

red, cinnabar-red

king, lord, master, sovereign

thus, then, only, surprisingly

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Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

Chinese characters (Hanja)

Chinese characters dictionary

爛

Etymology

Usage in Korean

Additional notes

Words that derived from 爛

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

References