谣 (yáo): folk ballad; popular song witho…

Meanings

1 folk ballad; popular song without instrumental accompaniment
2 rumor; unfounded talk

Characters

谣

yáo

ballad; rumor

Examples

民间流传着许多关于这位英雄的歌谣。

Mínjiān liúchuán zhe xǔduō guānyú zhèwèi yīngxióng de gēyáo.

Many folk ballads about this hero have been passed down.

谣言止于智者。

Yáoyán zhǐ yú zhìzhě.

Rumors stop at the wise.

Tips

history

Classical definition: 有章句曰歌，无章曲曰谣 — 'a song with set verses is 歌, a song without is 谣'. So 谣 originally meant a chanted, unaccompanied folk song. Combine with 童 'child' → 童谣 nursery rhyme; combine with 言 'speech' → 谣言 rumor (talk that spreads like an unwritten song).

Components

radical

讠 yán

speech (radical form of 言)

The speech radical on the left marks 谣 as a verbal product — songs sung unaccompanied, or rumours passed mouth to mouth. It anchors the meaning in talk and indexes 谣 with 歌 song, 唱 sing, 说 say, 话 speech, 论 discuss.

phonetic

䍃 yáo

earthenware jug (here phonetic)

䍃 supplies the sound yáo unchanged. It originally depicted hands raising a clay pot — used here only for phonetic value. The same phonetic core also drives 摇 shake, 遥 distant, 谣 itself, and 瑶 jade — every yáo syllable in the broader family rooted in this graph.