鮮

Sensory quality: vividness or excellence, including savory/delicious taste and bright, radiant, or clear color and appearance.

Frequency: scarcity; rare or few.

Primarily functions as an adjective. It also functions as an adverb of frequency when modifying verbs of existence or occurrence (e.g., 鮮有 "seldom have").

[DISTINITIONS]

Contrast with 新: While both can be rendered as "fresh," 新 typically denotes chronological recency, whereas 鮮 denotes a sensory state—specifically something that has not faded or decayed.

Variants include U+9C7B (semantic) and U+9C9C (simplified). Tang-period reading recorded as siɛn.

In political, geographic, or ethnic contexts (particularly from the Han dynasty onward), 鮮 often appears as part of a proper name, most notably 鮮卑 (Xianbei).