呦 (yōu) · oh!, hey!, expressing surprise

Meanings

1 oh!
2 hey!
3 expressing surprise

Characters

呦

yōu

exclamation of surprise

Examples

HSK 1

呦，你怎么来了？

Yōu, nǐ zěnme lái le?

Oh, how come you're here?

HSK 1

呦，这是什么好东西？

Yōu, zhè shì shénme hǎo dōngxi?

Hey, what's this nice thing?

Tips

usage

呦 expresses mild surprise or interest, similar to English 'oh!' or 'hey!'. It is colloquial and common in spoken Chinese.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left indexing mouth radical - marks 呦 as a vocalization. Anchors it among interjections and animal-sound characters alongside 哎 (sigh), 哦 (oh), 啊 (ah), 哇 (wow). 呦 was originally the cry of a deer (呦呦鹿鸣 "the deer cries yōu-yōu"), now extended to a soft human exclamation.

phonetic

幼 yòu

young (here phonetic)

Right 幼 supplies the sound (yòu → yōu with tone shift). 幼 itself means "young, tender," and the soft-spoken cry of a young deer or child gives a faint semantic flavor matching the gentle interjection meaning. Pure phonetic role; same phonetic family is sparse: 呦 is the main user.