About
Originally, 然 depicted meat (肉) and a dog (犬) roasting over fire (灬), meaning “to burn.” Over time, however, 然 was commonly borrowed for grammatical roles, as a suffix, adverbial marker, or conjunction meaning “so” or “correct”, which weakened its original sense of combustion. To restore the clear, specific meaning of burning, the fire radical 火 was later added to the left, forming the modern character 燃. In this phono-semantic compound, 火 indicates the semantic category of fire, while 然 provides the pronunciation.
Etymology Hide
Example Sentences Hide
森林燃烧了很久。
汽车需要燃料。
我们燃放了烟花。
燃气灶很方便。
发动机燃烧燃油。
他的热情被点燃了。
这种材料不易燃烧。
内燃机是现代工业的基础。