Chinese Character Wiki
許

xǔ

allow

Phonosemantic compound. 言 represents the meaning and 午 represents the sound.

Components
言 meaning component

言  Meaning component

yán

  

speech

午 sound component

午  Sound component

wǔ

  

noon

Evolution

許 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
許 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

许 (許) 

xǔ

allow, permit; promise; betroth; to allow; to permit; to promise; to praise; somewhat; perhaps

许 (許) 

Xǔ

surname Xu

Most common words with 許
Freq.
Word
Meaning

也许

perhaps

许多

many

或许

perhaps

允许

to permit

许

to allow

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

滸

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*qʰˤaʔ

xuX

hǔ

許許 (~ 滸滸 ~ 所所) sound of hewing wood (Mao 165.3)

*qʰ(r)aʔ

xjoX

xǔ

place (n.)

*qʰ(r)aʔ

xjoX

xǔ

allow


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 95.7232% of movies

186th most common character in movies

263rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Simplified

许

Unicode

U+8A31

Shuowen

“許，聽也。从言，午聲。”


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