noun

Meanings

  1. 1 ruins
  2. 2 wasteland
  3. 3 country fair (in southern dialects)

Examples

HSK 6
Cūnmín měi wǔ tiān gǎn yí cì xū zuò mǎimài.
Villagers go to the country fair to trade every five days.
HSK 7-9
Zhànzhēng guòhòu, chéngshì chéng le yí piàn fèixū.
After the war the city became a heap of ruins.

Tips

usage
Most learners meet in 废墟 (ruins). A separate southern-dialect sense, a periodic country market, survives in place names and the verb 赶墟 (to go to the fair).

Components

radical
earth; soil
The earth radical . Ruins and abandoned mounds are bare ground where buildings once stood, so the soil radical fixes the meaning of .
phonetic
empty; void
Supplies the sound xū and, unusually, reinforces the meaning: ruins are an empty, void place. Standalone keeps the same reading.

Stroke Order