Chinese character 阉

It means “to castrate” or “a castrated man.”

In compounds, 阉鸡 means a castrated rooster; 阉人 names a castrated man, and 阉官 a eunuch serving as an official. The next character sets the context: animal, person, or court role.

Castration in China is reported by about 1100 BCE, first as punishment and later as a way to supply servants to imperial households. The practice predates the character’s surviving written forms. A dictionary compiled in the Han dynasty, Shuowen Jiezi, describes 阉 as an attendant who shut palace gates. The traditional form 閹 appears in small-seal script, an early formal Chinese style, and in clerical writing from the Western Han dynasty, an early imperial period. Its gate component 門 sits beside 奄, which contributes the sound.

How is 阉 different from 宦官?

阉 names the condition; 宦官 names the palace role.

Eunuchs appear in accounts of pre-imperial courts as inner-palace servants. Their work included carrying, guarding, nursing, cooking, and serving women of the royal household; restricting access was part of the institution’s logic. In later periods, some became officials and political actors.

Older texts also use 閹 for a gate leaf or for restraining something. A phrase in Mencius, a classical Chinese book, uses it for flattering the world around you. These are text-bound readings; an isolated modern 阉 usually calls up the bodily or eunuch sense.

Why do I see 阉 and 閹?

阉 is simplified; 閹 is traditional.

They carry the same core meaning, and the form often follows the writing convention used for the rest of the text. Mandarin and Cantonese pronounce the compound differently.