Chinese character 觾

In this word, it names the swallow. 觾 is a separately built written variant for the bird-name written 燕. In Mandarin, it is pronounced yàn—roughly “yen,” with a falling tone—while 燕 has other readings and meanings in other words.

燕 appears much earlier on oracle bones—animal bones and shells inscribed during divination—and Shuowen, an early Chinese character dictionary, explains it pictorially. 觾 is not a Shuowen headword. The earliest known written example of 觾 is the phrase 雋觾之翠 in Lüshi Chunqiu, an early Chinese collection of writings; Han-era commentator Gao You glosses 觾 there as a bird name.

Is 觾 a variant of 燕 or a mistake?

It is a listed variant; one classical passage has a disputed reading. A Qing-era textual note proposed 觿燕 for that Lüshi Chunqiu line, partly because older character dictionaries did not list 觾. That proposal questions the wording of one passage; the variant graph itself is also documented.

For ordinary modern writing of “swallow,” 燕 is the familiar choice. Use 觾 when the rare form itself matters or when reproducing a source.