• kingfisher;
  • bright green color;

Etymology

A phono-semantic compound composed of:

— semantic component meaning “feathers; bird”;

— phonetic component indicating the sound (비 / fěi). The character refers to a bird with distinctive colored feathers, particularly the kingfisher.
Semantic development: - kingfisher (a bird with bright feathers); - green-blue feather color; - jade or jade-like green color.

Usage in Korean

비취 (翡翠) — jadeite; emerald-green jade

Although 翡 alone means kingfisher, in practice it most often appears in the compound 翡翠, referring to jade with a greenish color.

Additional notes

The color associated with 翡 resembles the green-blue tones of jade and traditional Korean celadon (고려청자).
Related characters: — kingfisher; green; jade-like color

— feather; wing

— jade

碧 — deep green or blue-green color

Words that derived from

물총새
mulchongsae
bi
Kangxi radical:124, + 8
Strokes:14
Unicode:U+7FE1
Cangjie input:
  • 中卜尸一一 (LYSMM)
Composition:
  • ⿱ 非 羽

Neighboring characters in the dictionary

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