吆 (yāo) · to shout; to bawl; to yell

Meanings

1 to shout; to bawl; to yell
2 to hawk (one's wares)
3 to urge on (an animal) with shouts

Characters

吆

yāo

to shout; hawk

Examples

HSK 6

他大声吆了一句，驴子才往前走。

Tā dàshēng yāo le yí jù, lǘzi cái wǎng qián zǒu.

He yelled out once, and only then did the donkey move forward.

HSK 7-9

小贩在街上吆着卖西瓜。

Xiǎofàn zài jiēshàng yāo zhe mài xīguā.

The street vendor was hawking watermelons.

Tips

usage

Most often seen in the disyllabic 吆喝 (yāohe, to shout / to hawk) rather than alone. 吆 itself sounds rural / colloquial - fits scenes with street vendors, farmers calling animals, or workers chanting work cries.

memory

Mouth radical 口 + 幺 (yāo, 'small / tiny' phonetic). The 口 tells you it's something coming out of the mouth; 幺 carries the sound.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth (radical)

Left mouth radical - the indexing radical, an open square that marks 吆 firmly in the sound-making family with 叫 to call, 喊 to shout, 唱 to sing, 喝 to bellow. Whenever a character names a vocal act, 口 is usually anchoring the left, and here it tags the act of bawling out wares or driving animals.

phonetic

幺 yāo

small; one

Right 幺 supplies the sound yāo, an exact match with no drift. The 'small' sense plays no part in the meaning; 幺 is purely a sound peg. Same phonetic powers 吆喝 yāohe, the disyllable for a street vendor's cry, still heard in old-Beijing alley markets.