Chinese Character Wiki
污

wū

filthy

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 亏 (于) represents the sound.

Components
氵 meaning component

氵  Meaning component

shui, shuǐ

  

water

water

于 sound component

于  Sound component

yú

  

at

亏 and 于 both come from the same ancient character.

Evolution

污 Bronze script Late Warring States (~250 BC)

Bronze script

Late Warring States (~250 BC)
污 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

污  

wū

filthy, dirty, impure, polluted; dirty; filthy; foul; corrupt; to smear; to defile; dirt; filth

污 (汚) 

wū

variant of 污[wū]

Most common words with 污
Freq.
Word
Meaning

污染

pollution

污水

sewage

贪污

to be corrupt

玷污

to stain

污点

stain

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*qʷˤra

'wae

wā

impure, vile


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 14.6084% of movies

1756th most common character in movies

1405th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+6C61

Shuowen

“汙，薉也。一曰小池為汙。一曰涂也。从水，于聲。”


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