verb #39,390

Meanings

  1. 1 to revive; to come back to life
  2. 2 used to transliterate 'Jesus'

Examples

Jīdūtú xiāngxìn Yēsū sǐ ér fùhuó.
Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
Zhè zuò jiàotáng lǐ yǒu hěnduō Yēsū de diāoxiàng.
There are many statues of Jesus in this church.

Tips

usage
In modern Chinese this character survives almost only in 耶稣 ('Jesus'). Historically it was an old form of meaning 'to revive', which is a fitting echo of the resurrection.

Components

radical
grain; standing crop
The grain radical on the right links the character to harvest: the old word meant gathering scattered grain, hence reviving or being restored.
phonetic
fish
On the left it acts as the sound element: shifted to sū here. The fish-and-grain pairing originally pictured gathering up food, which gave the early 'revive' sense.

Stroke Order