绪

緒
xù
noun #31,569

Meanings

  1. 1 clues
  2. 2 mental state
  3. 3 thread

Examples

HSK 2
Tā jīntiān qíngxu bú tài hǎo.
He's not in a very good mood today.
HSK 3
Wǒ xiǎng le bàntiān, yìdiǎn tóuxù yě méiyou.
I thought about it for ages and still couldn't make head or tail of it.

Tips

memory
纟 (silk) + 者 (one who) - the thread of one's thoughts.

Components

radical
纟 sī
silk (radical form of 糸)
Left silk radical (side-form of 糸) - the indexing radical, originally a pictograph of twisted silk fibres. Anchors 绪 in the textile family with 线 thread, 织 weave, 绳 rope. Concrete meaning is the loose end of a thread, which is why 绪 extends figuratively to 'mental thread, train of thought, mood'.
phonetic
者 zhě
one who
Right 者 supplies the sound: zhě to xù through historical sound shift. Same phonetic family includes 都 (capital), 暑 (heat), 署 (office), 著 (write). Carries no semantic role here - purely a sound marker.

Stroke Order

绪 xù