How to Write 蓥 (yíng) — Meaning “to polish; bright”

Imagine the top part 艹 as a bunch of grass on a mountain. The bottom part 荧 looks like a small fire (火) inside a shelter (冖), which you might polish until it shines — this connects to the meaning 'bright' and 'polish'.

Write the grass radical 艹 first with three strokes: horizontal, vertical, vertical. Then the bottom part 荧: start with the dot on top, then the horizontal hook, then the two fires below — note that the left fire 火 has a dot before the last stroke. A common mistake is making the bottom fires too wide; keep them compact.

蓥 (yíng) means 'to polish' or 'bright', while 莿 (cì) is a variant of 刺 meaning 'thorn' and has a different phonetic component (朿). 菀 (wǎn or yù) means 'luxuriant' or is a place name, with a different bottom part (夗). Visually, 蓥 has 荧 below, 莿 has 朿, and 菀 has 夗.

蓥 is rare in daily Chinese, mainly appearing in place names like 华蓥山 (Huáyíng Shān), a famous mountain in Sichuan. It also appears in the word 蓥石 (yíng shí), meaning polished stone or fluorite. Learners should recognize it for geography or specialist contexts.

Common words containing 蓥 include: 华蓥山 (huá yíng shān) — Huaying Mountain; 蓥华 (yíng huá) — Yinghua (place name); 蓥石 (yíng shí) — polished stone; fluorite.