yáo
legendary ancient emperor-sage
Original meaning:
tall; lofty
Depicts a mound of dirt (土) on top of a platform (兀), representing the original meaning "tall; lofty", later used to describe the legendary Emperor Yao.
Components
Evolution

Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 堯
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
surname Yao | ||
Yaodu district of Linfen city 臨汾市|临汾市[Línfénshì], Shanxi | ||
Yao or Tang Yao (c. 2200 BC), one of Five legendary Emperors 五帝[wǔdì], second son of Di Ku 帝嚳|帝喾[DìKù] | ||
Zhao Zhongyao (1902-1998), Chinese pioneer nuclear physicist | ||
Longyao county in Xingtai 邢台[Xíngtái], Hebei |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[ŋ]ˤew | ngew | yáo | high |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
3264th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 12 |
Simplified | |
Unicode | U+582F |
Shuowen | “堯,高也。从垚在兀上,高遠也。,古文堯。” |
Sources
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

