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昼

晝
zhòu
noun #31,930

Meanings

  1. 1 daytime
  2. 2 daylight hours
  3. 3 (literary) day (as opposed to night)

Examples

他昼夜不停地工作。
Tā zhòuyè bùtíng de gōngzuò.
He works ceaselessly day and night.
昼长夜短是夏天的特点。
Zhòu cháng yè duǎn shì xiàtiān de tèdiǎn.
Long days and short nights are characteristic of summer.

Tips

register
On its own 昼 is literary. In speech and modern writing it almost only appears in compounds, especially 昼夜 (zhòuyè, day and night), 白昼 (báizhòu, broad daylight), and 昼伏夜出 (zhòu fú yè chū, 'hide by day and emerge by night' — said of nocturnal animals or covert activity). Everyday 'daytime' is 白天 (báitiān).
memory
The simplified 昼 is the bottom-half abbreviation of traditional 晝, which combines 日 (sun) with the upper part of 畫 (a boundary/division) — etymologically 'the sun-side of the day', i.e. the part of the day-night divide where the sun is up.

Stroke Order

昼 zhòu