Definitions

cháng sit cross-legged; walk back and forth

Etymology

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

(cháng) is a phono-semantic compound: the walking radical (chì) on the left indicates movement, and the phonetic (shàng) on the right supplies the pronunciation. It is almost entirely restricted to the bound binome 徜徉 (chángyáng), which means to wander, roam, or stroll leisurely without a specific destination. The character rarely appears independently in either classical literary contexts or modern vernacular usage; its sense of aimless walking derives entirely from the step radical.