Chinese Character Wiki
如

rú

be like

Original meaning: 

obey

Depicts a woman (女) obeying spoken (口) orders. Based on the original meaning "obey". The meaning later shifted to "be similar" and "like". 女 also serves as a sound component.

Components
女 sound,iconic component

女  Sound Iconic component

nǚ, rǔ

  

woman

口 iconic component

口  Iconic component

kǒu

  

mouth

Evolution

如 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
如 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

如  

rú

if, supposing; as if; like, as; as; such as

Most common words with 如
Freq.
Word
Meaning

如果

if

如

as

如何

how

如此

so

比如

for example

Component uses

Sound component in 5 characters (0 verified)

恕 絮 茹 洳 铷

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*na

nyo

rú

go to

*na

nyo

rú

as, like, if


Statistics

HSK level 6

Appears in 99.8558% of movies

73rd most common character in movies

67th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+5982

Shuowen

“如，从隨也。从女，从口。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License