Chinese Character Wiki
需

xū

need

Original meaning: 

become wet

Pictograph of a person standing under the rain (雨), representing the meaning "become wet", now written as 濡. The current meaning is a phonetic loan. The person component was later replaced with the phonetic component 而.

Components
雨 iconic component

雨  Iconic component

yǔ, yù

  

rain

而 sound component

而  Sound component

ér

  

and

Evolution

需 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

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

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

需  

xū

need, require, must; to require; to need; to want; necessity; need

Most common words with 需
Freq.
Word
Meaning

需要

to need

需求

requirement

需

to need

无需

needless

急需

urgent need

Component uses

Sound component in 11 characters (1 verified)

濡 儒 懦 蠕 孺 嚅 糯 薷 襦 顬 颥

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*s-no

sju

xū

wait


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 96.3159% of movies

175th most common character in movies

408th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

14

Unicode

U+9700

Shuowen

“需，也，遇雨不進止也。从雨，而聲。《易》曰：‘雲上於天，需。’”


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