noun

Meanings

  1. 1 (archaic) elder sister (in the old Chu dialect)
  2. 2 (archaic) a character used in women's given names

Examples

Lísāo zhōng Qū Yuán de jiějie bèi chēngwéi nǚ xū.
In the Li Sao, the poet's elder sister is called Nü Xu.

Tips

history
Not used in modern Chinese; the standard simplified form is . It is best known from in Qu Yuan's Li Sao, traditionally read as the poet's elder sister, and as an old Chu word for 'elder sister'.
register
Classical and dialectal only — found in early poetry and old names, never in speech.

Components

radical
woman
The woman radical fits its core sense — an elder sister and a name element for women.
phonetic
must; beard
The right side supplies the sound xū with no tone shift, a clean phonetic carrying no beard meaning here.

No stroke data for ; the glyph shown is your device font, so component strokes can't be highlighted.

Stroke Order