yòu
right
Pictograph of a right hand. The 口 (mouth) component was added later to distinguish the character from 又.
Components
口 Distinguishing component
kǒu
mouth
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[ɢ]ʷəʔ | hjuwX | yòu | right hand |
*[ɢ]ʷəʔ-s (~ *m-qʷəʔ) | hjuwH | yòu | right hand |
Statistics
HSK level 1
Appears in 37.3699% of movies
1018th most common character in movies
783rd most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 5 |
Unicode | U+53F3 |
Shuowen | “右,手口相助也。从又,从口。” |
Sources
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