yùn
verb #11,352

Meanings

  1. 1 to iron (clothes)
  2. 2 to press

Examples

HSK 3
Nǐ néng bāng wǒ yùn yīxià zhè jiàn chènshān ma?
Can you help me iron this shirt?
HSK 3
Tā měitiān zǎoshang dōu yào yùn yīfu.
She irons clothes every morning.

Tips

mistakes
has two pronunciations: yùn (to iron clothes) and yù (smooth, reconciled, literary). The common word 熨斗 (clothes iron) uses the yùn pronunciation.

Components

radical
huǒ
fire
The fire radical sits at the bottom - flames pictured rising. It anchors the meaning of heat: an iron is hot metal pressed onto fabric. The radical indexes with all heat-application chars: burn, boil, roast, lamp, smoke.
phonetic
wèi
to soothe; officer
supplies the sound - wèi drifting to yùn, an irregular shift. It also adds a perfect semantic note: originally meant to press down with a hot hand, pacifying skin or soothing an ache - exactly what an iron does to wrinkled cloth. Same phonetic in console.

Stroke Order

yùn