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

Shǔ Guó de shǒudū shì Chéngdū.
The capital of Shu was Chengdu.
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