蜗 (wō) · snail

Meanings

1 snail

Characters

蜗

wō

snail (bound form)

Examples

HSK 4

蜗牛在雨后的叶子上慢慢爬行。

Wōniú zài yǔ hòu de yèzi shàng mànman páxíng.

The snail slowly crawled on the leaves after the rain.

HSK 6

他蜗居在一间十平米的小屋里。

Tā wōjū zài yī jiān shí píngmǐ de xiǎowū lǐ.

He lived crammed into a tiny ten-square-meter room.

Tips

usage

蜗 almost always appears in compounds: 蜗牛 (snail), 蜗居 (to live in a tiny cramped space), 蜗行 (to move at a snail's pace). Rarely used alone.

Components

radical

虫 chóng

insect; small creature

Left insect radical - originally a pictograph of a coiled snake, later extended to cover all small crawling creatures including bugs, worms, and snails. It anchors 蜗 in the buggy-creature family alongside 蛇 snake, 蚂 ant, 蝴 butterfly. A snail counts as 虫 by virtue of being slow, soft, and shell-bearing.

phonetic

呙 guō

crooked-mouth

Right side is 呙, simplified from 咼 ('crooked, twisted mouth'), supplying the sound - guō drifting to wō. Same phonetic powers 锅 pot, 涡 whirlpool, 窝 nest, 祸 disaster. The twisted, curling shape of 呙 also faintly mirrors the spiraling whorl of a snail's shell, a happy coincidence for the learner.