Chinese Character Wiki
夭

yāo

die young

Depicts a person walking quickly. Original form of 走. Relation to current meaning unclear.

Evolution

夭 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
夭 Bronze script Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)

Bronze script

Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
夭 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
夭 Clerical script Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)

Clerical script

Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)
夭 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

夭  

yāo

young, fresh-looking; die young; tender; gentle; to die prematurely

夭 (殀) 

yāo

variant of 夭[yāo]; to die young; Taiwan pr. [yǎo]

Most common words with 夭
Freq.
Word
Meaning

逃之夭夭

to show a clean pair of heels

夭

to die young

夭折

to die young or prematurely

夭亡

to die young

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)

幸

Sound component in 8 characters (1 verified)

笑 跃 沃 妖 袄 飫 饫 岙

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

走

Unknown component in 1 character (0 verified)

呑

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[ʔ](r)aw

'jew

yāo

delicate, slender


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 1.2013% of movies

3103rd most common character in movies

3079th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

4

Unicode

U+592D

Shuowen

“夭，屈也。从大，象形。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License