Chinese mnemonics and annotator
Matthews
Compositions
Explanation of characters by Herbert A. Giles
| 先 |
Hsien is composed of 人 jen man (under the form in which it appears when placed at the bottom of a character) as radical, and a corrupted 之. It used as a comparative adverb of time. |
Chinese-English (CC-CEDICT)
先
xiān
early/prior/former/in advance/first
Phrases ending with the given character
先xiān
不bù
先xiān
(dialect) first of all/in the first place