幼
yòu HSK4

young, infant

← Back to history
approved by Prismcool · Oct 10, 2024, 01:51 AM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Oct 10, 2024, 01:51 AM

Changed etymology description

Changed fields: hint, components, customSources

Someone who is young has weak (幺) strength (力). 幺 represents the sound.

Components

幺
幺 SoundMeaning component

Used here to allude to being tiny and weak.

力
力 Meaning component

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Warring States ~250 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'jiwH[ʔ](r)iw-s young

說文解字

《說文》:“幼,少也。从幺,从力。”

Sources

Character origin
李学勤《字源》p.338漢語多功能字庫中華語文知識庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica