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靦臉

jbradfor

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靦 by itself means "bashful". No surprise then that 靦腆 also means "shy / bashful".

Pretty easy far?

So 靦臉 should mean "bashful face", right? Nope, it means "shameless / brazen", pretty much the opposite of what I would have expected.

[And while we're here, what's up with this "simplification" of 靦 -> 腼? Oh boy, removed an entire 3 strokes out of 16. 腼 does make more sense -- the phonetic half is on the right, rather than the left, as is more common. And I guess "flesh" (肉/月) doesn't make any less sense than "to see" (見).]

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Glenn

Can I just say this is an amazing coincidence? I just came across 靦 for the first time yesterday, and here it is again. Funny how that seems to work out like that.

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jbradfor

@Glenn, that is funny. It gives one hope that the number of Chinese characters is, in fact, finite, and that one day I might go a full day of reading without encountering a new character I need to look up.

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