Chinese Character Wiki
秀

xiù

elegant, excellent

Depicts a grain seedling (禾) pulled out (引) of the ground. The meaning later expanded to "bloom", "blossom", "elegant", and "excellent".

Components
禾 iconic component

禾  Iconic component

hé

  

grain stalk

引 iconic,remnant component

引  Iconic Remnant component

yǐn

  

to pull

Modern form looks like 乃.

Evolution

秀 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
秀 Clerical script Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)

Clerical script

Western Jin dynasty (266-316 AD)
秀 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

秀  

xiù

ear of grain; flowering, luxuriant; refined, elegant, graceful; handsome; refined; elegant; graceful; superior; show (loanword); CL:場|场[cháng]; (literary) to grow; to bloom; (of crops) to produce ears

Most common words with 秀
Freq.
Word
Meaning

秀

handsome

优秀

outstanding

秀发

beautiful hair

秀丽

pretty

秀美

elegant

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

誘 诱

Sound component in 7 characters (1 verified)

透 誘 诱 绣 銹 锈 莠

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[s-l]u(ʔ)-s

sjuwH

xiù

to flower


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 29.3449% of movies

984th most common character in movies

1136th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Unicode

U+79C0

Shuowen

“秀，上諱。”


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