彦 (yàn): accomplished, elegant

彦 (yàn) is a Chinese character meaning “accomplished.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 产 (phonetic) and 彡 (semantic). It ranks #4281 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 彦 hair. Its radical form 彡 (bristle) appears in many related characters such as 影 (yǐng, picture), 彩 (cǎi, (bright) color), 形 (xíng, to appear).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. accomplished
  2. elegant

Etymology & Origin

彦

pictophonetichair

Decomposition: ⿱产彡 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Practice writing 彦 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
高村正彦gāo cūn zhèng yànKOMURA Masahiko (1942-), Japanese politician, foreign minister from 1998, minister of defense from 2007
巴彦淖尔市bā yàn nào ěr shìBayannur, prefecture-level city in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region 內蒙古自治區|内蒙古自治区
巴彦淖尔bā yàn nào ěrsee 巴彥淖爾市|巴彦淖尔市
韩彦直hán yàn zhíHan Yanzhi (1131-?), Song dynasty botanist, author of classification of orange trees 橘錄|橘录
野田佳彦yě tián jiā yànNoda Yoshihiko (1957-), prime minister of Japan 2011-2012
巴彦县bā yàn xiànBayan, a county in Harbin City 哈爾濱市|哈尔滨市, Heilongjiang
巴彦proper-nounbā yànsee 巴彥縣|巴彦县
李彦宏lǐ yàn hóngRobin Li (1968–), founder and CEO of Baidu 百度, a PRC Internet company
萨彦岭proper-nounsà yàn lǐngSayan Mountains, on the border of Russia and Mongolia
9
Total compounds
0
As first character
33
As last character
67
As middle character

彦 appears in 9 compound words: 0 as the first character, 33 as the last, and 67 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 彦 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

赛sài
0.42319 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

巴彦浩特Bāyànhàotè

Bayanhot (a town in Alxa Left Banner, Alxa League, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, China)

Example Sentences

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

印尼组合近期状态火热,前一日的半决赛淘汰了世界排名第一的中国组合冯彦哲/黄东萍。

yìn ní zǔ hé jìn qī zhuàng tài huǒ rè , qián yī rì de bàn jué sài táo tài le shì jiè pái míng dì yī de zhōng guó zǔ hé féng yàn zhé huáng dōng píng .

The Indonesian pair has been on a hot streak recently, having knocked out the world No. 1 Chinese pair, Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping, in the semifinals the day before.

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

后者在另一场半决赛中以2:0击败中国组合冯彦哲/黄东萍。

hòu zhě zài lìng yī chǎng bàn jué sài zhōng yǐ 2 : 0 jī bài zhōng guó zǔ hé féng yàn zhé huáng dōng píng .

The latter defeated the Chinese pair Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping 2–0 in the other semifinal.

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

新华社记者 宋彦桦 摄 20日,巴斯玛赢得了女子太极拳太极剑全能赛铜牌。

xīn huá shè jì zhě sòng yàn huà shè 2 0 rì , bā sī mǎ yíng dé le nǚ zǐ tài jí quán tài jí jiàn quán néng sài tóng pái .

Photo by Song Yanhua, Xinhua News Agency. On the 20th, Basma won the bronze medal in the women’s Taijiquan and Taijijian combined event.

中国新闻网·文化Sep 2026

粤东磁厂第三代传人曹志雄此次与女儿曹嘉彦一同参展。

yuè dōng cí chǎng dì sān dài chuán rén cáo zhì xióng cǐ cì yǔ nǚ ér cáo jiā yàn yī tóng cān zhǎn .

Cao Zhixiong, the third-generation heir of the East Guangdong Magnet Factory, is exhibiting at the event alongside his daughter, Cao Jiayan.

中国新闻网·体育Sep 2026

去年队里的双胞胎姐妹林彦君、林彦含在常昊的帮助下开始尝试担任尖子。

qù nián duì lǐ de shuāng bāo tāi jiě mèi lín yàn jūn , lín yàn hán zài cháng 昊 de bāng zhù xià kāi shǐ cháng shì dān rèn jiān zǐ .

Last year, the team’s twin sisters, Lin Yanjun and Lin Yanhan, began trying their hand at playing as top players with Chang Hao’s help.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 彡 (hair) component

彡 Radical Family — Characters sharing the bristle radical

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 彦 (yàn) mean in Chinese?
彦 (yàn) primarily means "accomplished." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #4281 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 彦 and 铲?
彦 (yàn) and 铲 (chǎn) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 彡 vs 钅 (same 产 component).
How many strokes does 彦 have?
彦 is written with 9 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 彦?
The radical associated with 彦 is 彡 (bristle). This radical appears in many characters related to bristle.
What are the components of 彦?
彦 is composed of: 产 (phonetic), 彡 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱产彡 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 彦?
Common words with 彦 include: 高村正彦 (gāo cūn zhèng yàn, "KOMURA Masahiko (1942-), Japanese politician, foreign minister from 1998, minister of defense from 2007"); 巴彦淖尔市 (bā yàn nào ěr shì, "Bayannur, prefecture-level city in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region 內蒙古自治區|内蒙古自治区"); 巴彦淖尔 (bā yàn nào ěr, "see 巴彥淖爾市|巴彦淖尔市"); 韩彦直 (hán yàn zhí, "Han Yanzhi (1131-?), Song dynasty botanist, author of classification of orange trees 橘錄|橘录"); 野田佳彦 (yě tián jiā yàn, "Noda Yoshihiko (1957-), prime minister of Japan 2011-2012"). There are over 9 compound words containing this character.
Is 彦 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 彦 and the traditional form is 彥.

Practice writing 彦 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.