喏 (nuò): look!

Meanings

1 look!
2 here!
3 yes (indicating agreement)

Characters

喏

nuò

look!; here!; yes (agreement); variant of 诺

Examples

HSK 1

喏，你要找的东西在那里。

Nuò, nǐ yào zhǎo de dōngxi zài nàlǐ.

Look - the thing you're looking for is over there.

HSK 6

喏，我就说嘛，他肯定会来的。

Nuò, wǒ jiù shuō ma, tā kěndìng huì lái de.

See, I told you - he was definitely going to come.

Tips

usage

喏 is used to draw someone's attention to something nearby - like pointing something out and saying 「look, there it is」. It also has a second pronunciation rě, used in the classical phrase 唱喏 (to bow and utter polite phrases). The nuò pronunciation is the common everyday use.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left mouth radical - the indexing element. The radical signals an utterance or interjection: 喏 is a spoken particle used to call attention ('look! here!') or to express assent ('yes, all right'). Puts 喏 in the voice-particle family with 哎, 哦, 唉, 嗯, 嘿 - all small mouth-prefixed words for tones of speech.

phonetic

若 ruò

if; as if (here phonetic)

Right 若 supplies the sound - ruò drifting to nuò through the regular r/n alternation seen across the 若 phonetic group (诺 promise, 偌 such). 若 originally depicted a kneeling figure with hands raised, combing the hair, the seed for 'agreeable, compliant.' For 喏 the agreement flavour fits the 'yes, all right' interjection sense.