Wei Collection, Middle Volume Radical: Silk (mì) Kangxi Strokes: 17 Page 936, Entry 15 Pronounced piao (rising tone). Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters): Silk fabric of a bluish-white color. Guangya (Broad Refinements): Piao is blue. Shiming (Explanations of Names): Piao is equivalent to floating. Floating indicates a light blue color. There are shades such as jade-green piao, sky-blue piao, and bone-white piao, each named for the color it resembles. Guangyun (Broad Rhymes): A blue-yellow color. Book of the Later Han (Hou Hanshu), Treatise on Carriages and Clothing: Merchants may only wear piao and yellow-colored silk. Songs of Chu (Chuci), Nine Laments (Jiu Huai): With green and blue skirts. Also pronounced piao (falling tone). The meaning is the same. Also pronounced piao (level tone). Book of the Former Han (Hanshu), Biography of Jia Yi: The phoenix soars high, piao-piao. Commentary: Piao-piao describes the appearance of moving lightly. Mu Hua, Sea Rhapsody (Hai Fu): The immortals appear piao-miao (faint and distant). Textual research: Guangya (Broad Refinements): Cang-qing (deep green/blue). Note: Following the original text, changed cang to piao.