炎

Ideogrammic compound:

火 (불 화, “fire”) × 2 — duplicated to emphasize brightness, burning, and rising flames.

Thus, originally a pictograph of two fires blazing together, representing strong flame.

Script evolution:

Oracle bone script (甲骨文): drawn as two stacked fire symbols.

Bronze script (金文): more symmetrical arrangement of the flames.

Clerical/Regular script: standardized into the modern compact stacked 火 form.

炎症 (염증) — inflammation

發炎 (발염) — to inflame, become infected

炎熱 (염열) — burning heat

炎夏 (염하) — scorching summer

火炎 (화염) — flame, blaze

Alternate reading 담 (“beautiful, splendid”) appears in some classical contexts, though rarely used in modern Korean.

In HSK vocabulary, 炎 survives in compounds (炎症, 發炎) rather than as an independent character in modern usage.

炏 (U+708F), a less common form with the same meaning.