Shǔ
proper noun #33,294

Meanings

  1. 1 Shu - one of the Three Kingdoms (221-263 AD), also called Shu Han (蜀汉)
  2. 2 short name for Sichuan province

Examples

HSK 3
Shǔ guó de shǒudū shì Chéngdū.
The capital of Shu was Chengdu.
HSK 7-9
Sìchuān de jiǎnchēng shì Shǔ.
The abbreviation for Sichuan is 'Shu'.

Tips

culture
was founded by Liu Bei (刘备) in 221 AD, with Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮) as chancellor - the state made famous by 《三国演义》. Today it survives as the one-character abbreviation for Sichuan: car plates read or .

Components

radical
chóng
insect; worm
(the indexing radical) is the literal worm - silkworm specifically. The whole graph is a giant silkworm, which over centuries became the name for the silkworm-rich Sichuan region and then the Three Kingdoms state Shu Han based there.
semantic
wǎng
net; eye-on-side
sits on top - historically not a net here but a horizontally-laid (eye), depicting the bulging eyes of a silkworm. The original picture of is a wide-eyed worm rearing up; that curled-worm imagery survives in the curve below.
semantic
bāo
wrap
wraps around the lower body - depicting the worm's coiled, hunched torso. It frames inside, completing the picture of a curled silkworm with its head reared and its body bent into the strike-pose.

Stroke Order

Shǔ