Chan.
A Chinese surname from Cantonese.
Meaning & usage
A Chinese surname from Cantonese.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Cantonese 陳 /陈 (can⁴).
A Chinese surname from Hokkien.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Hokkien 曾 (Chan).
A major Chinese school of Mahayana Buddhism characterized by sudden enlightenment achieved by indirect means, developed in Japan as Zen.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 禪 /禅 (Chán), a development and clipping of Middle Chinese 禪那 (MC dzyen na), a transcription of Sanskrit ध्यान (dhyāna, literally “meditation”). Doublet of dhyana and Zen.
A surname from Khmer.
Where this word comes from
From Khmer ចន្ទ (can).
Alternative form of Zhan, A Chinese surname from Mandarin.
Where this word comes from
From the Wade–Giles romanization Chan¹ of Mandarin 詹 (Zhān).
Alternative form of Chanambam surname of Meitei origin
Alternative form of Chandam surname of Meitei origin
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Manipuri ꯆꯥꯟ (cān).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.