About
嬗 is a phono-semantic compound with 女 (nǚ, woman) as the semantic component on the left and 亶 (dǎn) as the phonetic on the right. Its original meaning was a woman's graceful or elegant demeanor. Over time, it shifted to denote succession, transition, and transformation across generations. In both classical and modern Chinese, it is almost always found in the compound 嬗变 (shànbiàn), referring to a fundamental change or evolution in nature, society, or ruling dynasties, completely supplanting its initial feminine connotations.
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