雨 (yǔ): rain

Meanings

1 rain

Characters

Pictograph — the top horizontal is the sky, the canopy below the underside of clouds, the dots inside falling raindrops.

Examples

下雨了，带伞吧。

Xiàyǔ le, dài sǎn ba.

It's raining, bring an umbrella.

今天有雨。

Jīntiān yǒu yǔ.

There is rain today.

一场大雨过后，空气特别清新。

Yī cháng dàyǔ guòhòu, kōngqì tèbié qīngxīn.

After a heavy rain, the air is especially fresh.

Tips

history

雨 is a pictograph: the top horizontal is the sky, the canopy beneath it the underside of a cloud, and the four dots inside falling raindrops. The shape is attested almost identically in oracle-bone forms three thousand years ago, making it one of the most stable graphs in the script.

culture

雨 is Kangxi radical #173 and the indexing radical for nearly every weather word in Chinese: 雪 (snow), 雷 (thunder), 霜 (frost), 雾 (fog), 露 (dew). Spotting 雨 sitting on top of an unfamiliar character is a near-certain signal that the meaning involves sky water or sudden weather.

Components

pictograph

雨 yǔ

rain

A textbook pictograph: the top horizontal is the sky, the canopy below the underside of clouds, the four dots inside falling raindrops. Attested almost identically in oracle-bone forms three thousand years ago. Functions as Kangxi radical #173 over the weather family — 雪 (snow), 雷 (thunder), 雾 (fog), 露 (dew).

Radical

Rain Kangxi #173

The weather radical. When 雨 sits on top of another character it almost always points to a sky-borne phenomenon — precipitation, atmospheric water, or sudden weather. Highly productive in meteorology vocabulary: 雪, 雷, 霜, 露, 雾, 霞, 霸. The four dots inside descend like falling drops.