汝

rǔ
pronoun #13,271

Meanings

  1. 1 thou; you

Examples

HSK 7-9
Rǔ děng hérén?
Who are you people? (archaic)
HSK 7-9
Rǔ zhī míng wéi hé?
What is thy name? (archaic)

Tips

register
汝 is classical/literary Chinese (文言文). It's the equivalent of English 'thou'. In modern Chinese, use 你 instead. You'll encounter 汝 in historical texts, classical poetry, and period dramas.

Components

radical
氵 shuǐ
water (radical form of 水)
Three-drops water radical on the left - the side-form of 水. Originally 汝 was the name of a specific river in present-day Henan, the 汝水, so the water radical is literal: this graph began as a place-name marking a riverbed. Only by phonetic borrowing did it become the classical second-person pronoun 'thou.' Same water family: 河, 江, 湖, 海.
phonetic
女 nǚ
woman
Right 女 supplies the sound - nǚ drifting to rǔ through historical n/r alternation. 女 pictures a kneeling woman with crossed arms, the iconic graph for 'woman.' For 汝 the meaning is purely phonetic - there is no semantic link to women. The classical pronoun 'thou' was simply borrowed from this river-name through sound.

Stroke Order

汝 rǔ