xiù
verb HSK 7-9 #15,257

Meanings

  1. 1 to embroider
  2. 2 embroidery

Examples

Tā zài shǒupà shàng xiù le yī duǒ huā.
She embroidered a flower on the handkerchief.
Sū xiù shì Zhōngguó zhùmíng de chuántǒng gōngyì.
Suzhou embroidery is a famous traditional Chinese craft.

Tips

culture
China has four great embroidery traditions: (Suzhou), (Hunan), (Sichuan), and (Guangdong). Suzhou embroidery is the most renowned.
memory
The radical (silk) + (elegant) = creating elegant patterns with silk thread.

Components

radical
silk; thread
is the left-side simplified form of (silk). Embroidery is fundamentally needle and silk thread on cloth, so the silk radical is the perfect anchor. Compare (weave), (braid), (sew), (velvet) — all silk-radical fabric arts.
phonetic
xiù
elegant; show; outstanding
(xiù) supplies the sound, unchanged. The semantic echo is rich — embroidery is the elegant, decorative show on a fabric, exactly what implies. The pairing reads as silk-elegance. Same phonetic: (rust), (entice), (weeds).

Stroke Order

xiù