靑

This character 靑 (날 생 + 丹 붉을 단) is composed of 生 ("to live" or "to grow") and 丹 (meaning cinnabar, a bright red mineral pigment, but here likely representing a color element).

The character is either seen as a phono-semantic compound with 生 as the phonetic component, or as an ideogram symbolizing the fresh green color of a sprouting plant.

Originally, it meant the greenness of plants — the fresh, vibrant color of new growth. Over time, 靑 came to encompass both blue and green colors.

靑 historically denotes a range of colors from green to blue, with context and language influencing its exact meaning.

In modern Chinese, when used as a color name, 靑 typically means "cyan" or "blue-green."

In Cantonese, it can also mean "light green."

Like in classical Chinese, the character covers both blue and green hues.

In Korean and Japanese, it generally came to mean "blue."

In China, 青 as an adjective often refers to greenish objects more than purely blue.

The character 藍 (blue-indigo) is more commonly used for pure blue in Chinese.

In Cantonese, when emphasizing green, the phrase "青BB" is used.

靑 also appears as an abbreviation in names, such as 청와대 (靑瓦臺, the Blue House, the Korean presidential residence).