shū
noun #43,955

Meanings

  1. 1 pivot; hinge
  2. 2 central part; hub

Examples

Zhè zuò chéngshì shì zhòngyào de jiāotōng shūniǔ.
This city is an important transport hub.
Dànǎo shì shénjīng xìtǒng de zhōngshū.
The brain is the central hub of the nervous system.

Tips

usage
Originally a door pivot, now mostly figurative for a critical control point. Key compounds: 枢纽 (hub, linchpin) and 中枢 (central nervous system; nerve center of an organization).

Components

radical
tree; wood
Left wood radical. A door pivot was a wooden post, so the radical records the original physical object. It groups with other wooden-structure characters like and .
phonetic
area; district
Right supplies the sound — qū drifting to shū, a moderate shift. It contributes no meaning here and is a contracted simplified form replacing the fuller phonetic in traditional .

Stroke Order

shū