Chinese Character Wiki
油

yóu

oil

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 由 represents the sound.

Components
氵 meaning component

氵  Meaning component

shui, shuǐ

  

water

氵 is a component form of 水.

由 sound component

由  Sound component

yóu

  

cause

Evolution

油 Bronze script Mid Warring States (~300 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Warring States (~300 BC)
油 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
油 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

油  

yóu

oil, fat, grease, lard; paints; oil; fat; grease; petroleum; to apply tung oil, paint or varnish; oily; greasy; glib; cunning

Most common words with 油
Freq.
Word
Meaning

加油

to add oil

油

oil

石油

oil

汽油

gasoline

原油

crude oil

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[l][u]

yuw

yóu

flow(ing)


Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 50.8089% of movies

618th most common character in movies

948th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Unicode

U+6CB9

Shuowen

“油，水。出武陵孱陵西，東南〔北〕入江。从水，由聲。”


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