niú
cow
Pictograph of the head of a cow.
Evolution

Bronze script
Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Component uses
Meaning component in 31 characters (4 verified)
物 特 件 犀 牧 牲 牵 牽 牺 犧 牡 犁 犊 犢 犟 犄 犒 牝 牦 牯 犍 荦 牾 犏 牿 牴 牸 犂 犋 犎 犪
Sound component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*[ŋ]ʷə (< uvular?) | ngjuw | niú | ox |
Statistics
HSK level 3
Appears in 41.8228% of movies
822nd most common character in movies
1018th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 4 |
Unicode | U+725B |
Shuowen | “牛,大牲也,牛件也。件,事理也。象角頭三,封尾之形。” |
Sources
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