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

HSK 1

今天有雨。

Jīntiān yǒu yǔ.

There is rain today.

HSK 3

下雨了，带伞吧。

Xiàyǔ le, dài sǎn ba.

It's raining, bring an umbrella.

HSK 7-9

一场大雨过后，空气特别清新。

Yì 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.