About
鬟 (huán) refers to a ring-shaped topknot hairstyle worn by young unmarried women or female servants in historical China. The character is a phono-semantic compound: the radical 髟 (biāo, long hair) at the top provides the semantic category of hair, while the component 睘 (huán) at the bottom indicates the pronunciation. Since this hairstyle served as a distinctive marker for maidservants, the term expanded through metonymy to mean the servant girls themselves. It appears frequently in classical literature and historical dramas to denote female domestic attendants in aristocratic households.
Etymology Hide
