有 (yǒu): to have

Meanings

1 to have
2 there is
3 there are

Characters

有

yǒu

to have; there is/are; to exist

Examples

我有一只猫。

Wǒ yǒu yì zhī māo.

I have a cat.

教室里有很多学生。

Jiàoshì lǐ yǒu hěnduō xuésheng.

There are many students in the classroom.

你有问题吗？

Nǐ yǒu wèntí ma?

Do you have any questions?

Tips

grammar

有 is negated with 没, NEVER with 不: 我没有钱 (I don't have money), not *我不有钱. This is one of the few Chinese verbs that doesn't use 不.

mistakes

有 means both 'to have' and 'there is/are.' Context makes the meaning clear: 我有… (I have...) vs 这里有… (there is/are... here).

Components

radical

⺼ ròu

flesh (radical form)

Bottom is here the meat radical ⺼ (which collapses to a moon-like shape in compound position). Holding meat in one's hand was the canonical sign of having food, of being well-off. The 'have/exist' meaning generalised from this concrete possession scene.

semantic

又 yòu

right hand

Top-left — historically a stylized contraction of 又 (right hand). Modern brushwork has reduced the original three-stroke hand to a left-falling stroke plus one horizontal, but pedagogically it still reads as 'the hand holding what is below.' The modern 又 has 2 strokes drawn slightly differently; 有's top is the older flattened form.