wan
part of speech
adjective (wan, wanner, wannest)
meaning for a pupil
1) Wan means pale and looking ill or tired. tree →
2) A wan smile is a weak, tired or sad smile. tree →
3) (old, poetic) Wan light is faint and weak. tree →
4) (Mandarin, pinyin) wǎn can mean evening or late, and wàn means ten thousand; these are not English words. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories it shows a character is unwell, worried or exhausted. Phrases: a wan face, a wan smile, look wan.
examples
- She looked wan after a week with flu. tree →
- He gave a wan smile and said he was fine. tree →
- The wan winter sun barely warmed the garden. tree →
- Your face is so wan — sit down and have some water. tree →
- The patient's cheeks were wan and thin. tree →
- In Mandarin, "wǎn shàng hǎo" means good evening. tree →
note
Literary word; everyday words are pale, pasty. Rhymes with "con". Do not confuse with want or won.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «wan» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.