verb #14,446

Meanings

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

Examples

HSK 3
朋友见面叙叙
Lǎo péngyǒu jiànmiàn, xùxù jiù.
Old friends meet to catch up on old times.
HSK 7-9
Qǐng bǎ shìqing jīngguò xùshù yī biàn.
Please recount the course of events.

Tips

usage
Common in compounds: 叙述 (to narrate), 叙事 (narrative), 叙旧 (to reminisce). Also the standard abbreviation for 叙利亚 (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
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