About
The character 然 originally denoted burning, evident from its structure that places the fire radical 灬 beneath the component 肰, which itself combines elements for meat and dog and likely served a phonetic role. This etymological link to combustion led to its early use meaning to ignite or burn, but it was later appropriated as a phonetic loan to express the grammatical sense of "so" or "thus". Consequently, the original meaning was largely supplanted by the compound character 燃, while 然 evolved to function primarily as an adverb, conjunction, or morphological suffix in modern Chinese vocabulary.
Etymology Hide
Example Sentences Hide
我们先吃饭然后看电影。
我当然喜欢这本书。
天空突然下起雨来。
这里的风景很自然。
虽然下雨，但我们还是去了。
他果然通过了考试。
他竟然忘记了她的生日。
他欣然接受了我们的邀请。