About
鸢 is a phono-semantic compound combining the bird radical 鸟 (niǎo) at the bottom to indicate an avian creature, and the phonetic component 弋 (yì, a retrievable arrow or to shoot) above. In traditional script it is written 鳶 with the full bird radical 鳥. The character originally refers to a kite, a bird of prey with long wings that soars and glides gracefully. Because its gliding flight resembled man-made flying objects, 鸢 came to be used for paper kites, most notably in the classical term 纸鸢 (zhǐyuān), and remains a literary word for kite.
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