弱 - Dong Chinese dictionary

ruò

weak

Original meaning:

urinate

Depicts two people urinating (尿). Based on the original meaning "urinate", now written as 尿/溺. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

尿 Iconic component

niào, suī

urine

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 尿 than it was in ancient scripts.

尿 Iconic component

niào, suī

urine

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 尿 than it was in ancient scripts.

Evolution

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

弱

ruò

weak; fragile, delicate; feeble; young; inferior; (following a decimal or fraction) slightly less than

Most common words with 弱

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	弱	weak
	脆弱	weak
	弱点	weak point
	软弱	weak
	虚弱	weak

Component uses

Sound component in 3 characters (1 verified)

溺搦蒻

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
*newk	nyak	ruò	weak

Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 33.4294% of movies

1174th most common character in movies

1038th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	10
Unicode	U+5F31
Shuowen	“弱，橈也，上象橈曲，彡象毛氂橈弱也。弱物并，故从二。”

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

季旭昇《說文新證》p.705

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Original meaning:

Freq.

Word

Meaning