吆 (yāo): to shout; to bawl; to yell

Meanings

1 to shout; to bawl; to yell
2 to hawk (one's wares)
3 to urge on (an animal) with shouts

Characters

吆

yāo

to shout; hawk

Examples

HSK 7-9

小贩在街上吆着卖西瓜。

Xiǎofàn zài jiēshàng yāo zhe mài xīguā.

The street vendor was hawking watermelons.

HSK 7-9

他大声吆了一句，驴子才往前走。

Tā dàshēng yāo le yí jù, lǘzi cái wǎng qián zǒu.

He yelled out once, and only then did the donkey move forward.

Tips

usage

Most often seen in the disyllabic 吆喝 (yāohe, to shout / to hawk) rather than alone. 吆 itself sounds rural / colloquial - fits scenes with street vendors, farmers calling animals, or workers chanting work cries.

memory

Mouth radical 口 + 幺 (yāo, 'small / tiny' phonetic). The 口 tells you it's something coming out of the mouth; 幺 carries the sound.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth (radical)

Left mouth radical - the indexing radical, an open square that marks 吆 firmly in the sound-making family with 叫 to call, 喊 to shout, 唱 to sing, 喝 to bellow. Whenever a character names a vocal act, 口 is usually anchoring the left, and here it tags the act of bawling out wares or driving animals.

phonetic

幺 yāo

small; one

Right 幺 supplies the sound yāo, an exact match with no drift. The 'small' sense plays no part in the meaning; 幺 is purely a sound peg. Same phonetic powers 吆喝 yāohe, the disyllable for a street vendor's cry, still heard in old-Beijing alley markets.