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染

Mandarin · pinyin rǎn

to dye
to catch (a disease)
to acquire (bad habits etc)
to contaminate
to add color washes to a painting

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染: rǎn · dye; be contagious; infect

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3 · ran3

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1character link10same-tone records

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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 · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jim5

Cantonese word readings for 染. 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.

character

to dye
to catch (a disease); to fall into (a bad habit)
a surname, Ran

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

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