酥 (sū): flaky (of pastry)

Meanings

1 flaky (of pastry)
2 crunchy; crispy
3 limp; weak (of limbs)
4 soft; silky

Characters

酥

sū

crispy; flaky; limp

Examples

这个饼干很酥。

Zhège bǐnggān hěn sū.

This biscuit is very crispy.

她吓得腿都酥了。

Tā xià de tuǐ dōu sū le.

She was so scared her legs went limp.

Tips

usage

酥 has two distinct uses: for food it means 'crispy/flaky' (酥脆, 酥饼), but for the body it means 'limp/weak' (酥软, 腿酥了).

Components

radical

酉 yǒu

wine jar; fermentation

The wine-jar radical on the left places 酥 in the dairy-and-fermented family — originally 酥 named a fresh butter or cream skimmed from cultured milk on the steppe. From dairy-rich-and-light came the modern senses of flaky pastry and crisp texture. Family: 酒 wine, 醒 sober, 酱 sauce.

phonetic

禾 hé

grain; ripe cereal (here phonetic)

禾 supplies the sound — hé drifting to sū, a wide drift reflecting the loan from steppe-language dairy vocabulary that 酥 originally transcribed. The picture of drooping grain on the right has no semantic role here. The phonetic series is small and mostly archaic.