於 (yú): in

Meanings

1 in
2 at
3 to
4 from
5 by

Characters

於

yú

in; at; to; from; by

Examples

他生於一九八〇年。

Tā shēng yú yī jiǔ bā líng nián.

He was born in 1980.

这座桥建於清朝。

Zhè zuò qiáo jiàn yú Qīngcháo.

This bridge was built during the Qing Dynasty.

Tips

usage

於 is the traditional form of 于. In modern simplified Chinese, 于 is standard. 於 is still commonly seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and classical texts.

Components

radical

方 fāng

square; direction

Left direction radical — the indexing radical. 方 originally pictured a plowshare; in 於 it grounds the preposition spatially, anchoring 'in, at, toward'. The direction radical also appears in 旅 (travel), 旁 (side), 施 (apply) — locational and orientational characters.

phonetic

仒 yú

stylised bird-tail (phonetic remnant)

Right four strokes — a phonetic remnant historically derived from 烏 (crow), which supplied the sound. 於 originated as an exclamation 'wū!' before being borrowed for the preposition reading yú. The right side is no longer a familiar standalone character; it persists only as a phonetic shell. Mnemonic: a stylised bird-tail trailing rightward off the 方 plough.