verb #14,446

Meanings

  1. 1 to narrate
  2. 2 to chat
  3. 3 to recount
  4. 4 abbr. for Syria

Examples

Lǎopéngyǒu jiànmiàn, xù xùjiù.
Old friends meet to catch up on old times.
Qǐng bǎ shìqing jīngguò xùshù yī biàn.
Please recount the course of events.

Tips

usage
Common in compounds: 叙述 (xùshù, to narrate), 叙事 (xùshì, narrative), 叙旧 (xùjiù, to reminisce). Also the standard abbreviation for 叙利亚 (Xùlìyà, Syria) in news headlines.

Components

radical
yòu
hand; again
Right side — the indexing hand radical, a pictograph of a right hand reaching out. Gives the meaning: hand-work of arranging, gathering, recounting events in order. The same radical underlies to take, friend, to receive — all hand-action chars. Narration is the hand placing things in sequence.
phonetic
remaining; surplus (here phonetic)
Left side supplies the sound: yú shifted to xù via the regular y/x alternation. itself originally depicted a thatched shelter, picked up as the first-person pronoun and adverb meaning remainder — none of which transfers here. Same yú/xù phonetic family appears in to remove and path.

Stroke Order