舞 (wǔ): dance; dancing

Meanings

1 dance; dancing
2 to dance; to move about
3 to wield; to brandish

Characters

舞

wǔ

dance; to wave; to wield

Examples

她很喜欢跳舞。

Tā hěn xǐhuan tiàowǔ.

She really likes to dance.

这是一场美丽的舞蹈。

Zhè shì yī chǎng měilì de wǔdǎo.

This is a beautiful dance.

广场上有人在跳广场舞。

Guǎngchǎng shàng yǒurén zài tiào guǎngchǎngwǔ.

People are doing square dancing in the plaza.

Tips

usage

舞 is used in: 跳舞 (to dance), 舞蹈 (dance as an art), 舞台 (stage), 舞会 (ball/dance party). 跳舞 is the everyday word for dancing.

culture

广场舞 (square dancing) is a massive social phenomenon in China - groups of mostly older women dance together in public squares every evening.

Components

radical

夕 xī

evening (here radical-by-shape)

Bottom indexing radical 夕 - filed under this radical by shape rather than derivation. Historically the bottom was 舛 'two feet facing apart' (a stamping-feet pictograph). Modern 舞 is filed under 夕. The two-feet image at the bottom completes the dancing-figure picture: streamers on top, feet stamping below.

phonetic

舞 wǔ

dance (top portion: figure with streamers)

Top 11-stroke portion is a fused remnant of 无 (no, without), historically supplying both sound and structure. Oracle-bone 舞 showed a person with hanging streamers in both hands - the streamers drawn here as four vertical hatches over horizontal bars. Standalone 无 has 4 strokes today; the fuller traditional form had 12, contracted here to 11.