Chinese Character Wiki
歐

ōu, oū

Europe

Original meaning: 

vomit

Phonosemantic compound. 欠 represents the meaning and 區 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "vomit". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
區 sound component

區  Sound component

qū, oū

  

area

欠 meaning component

欠  Meaning component

qiàn

  

yawn, deficient

Evolution

歐 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
歐 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
歐 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

欧 (歐) 

ōu

used in transliterating non-Chinese words such as Europe, ohm; surname; (used for transliteration); old variant of 謳|讴[ōu]

欧 (歐) 

Oū

Europe; abbr. for 歐洲|欧洲[Oū​zhōu]; surname Ou

Most common words with 歐
Freq.
Word
Meaning

欧洲

Europe

欧

to sing

欧元

euro (currency)

欧盟

EU

欧美

the West

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 18.1804% of movies

1146th most common character in movies

823rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

15

Simplified

欧

Unicode

U+6B50

Shuowen

“歐，吐也。从欠，區聲。”


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