丫鬟

Mandarin · pinyin yā huan

Meanings

  1. servant girl
  2. maid
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Characters in this entry

丫
yā · forked; bifurcation
鬟
huán · dress hair in coiled knot; maid
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–5 · ya1 huan5

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

aa1 waan4

Cantonese word readings for 丫鬟. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

  1. (literary, literally) fork-shaped bun (of women)
  2. (historical, metonymic) slave-girl; servant girl; maidservant

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack