Chinese Character Wiki
叔

shū

uncle

Original meaning: 

to dig

Depicts holding a sharp wooden stick (弋) in the hand (又) to dig up dirt. Based on the original meaning "to dig". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
弋 iconic component

弋  Iconic component

yì

  

to shoot

Depicts a sharp wooden stick in the ground.

◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts dirt on the ground.

又 iconic component

又  Iconic component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Depicts a hand.

Evolution

叔 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
叔 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
叔 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
叔 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

叔  

shū

father's younger brother; uncle; husband's younger brother; Taiwan pr. [shú]

Most common words with 叔
Freq.
Word
Meaning

叔叔

uncle

叔

uncle

大叔

eldest of father's younger brothers

叔父

uncle

表叔

son of grandfather's sister

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (1 verified)

督 寂 淑 椒 菽

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*s-tiwk

syuwk

shū

gather, harvest

*s-tiwk

syuwk

shū

3rd of 4 brothers


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 17.6518% of movies

945th most common character in movies

1422nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+53D4

Shuowen

“叔，拾也。从又，尗聲。汝南名收芋為叔。，叔或从寸。”


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