Chinese Character Wiki
舞

wǔ

dance

Originally written as 無, which is a pictograph of a person dancing, with ox tails or bird feathers hanging from his arms, to pray for rain. The 舛 (two feet) component was later added to emphasize the action of dancing after 無 was phonetically borrowed for different meanings.

Components
舛 iconic component

舛  Iconic component

chuǎn

  

oppose

Depicts two feet.

無 sound,iconic component

無  Sound Iconic component

wú

  

negative

Depicts a person dancing with ox tails or bird feathers hanging from his arms.

Evolution

舞 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
舞 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
舞 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

舞  

wǔ

dance, posture, prance; brandish; to dance; to wield; to brandish

Most common words with 舞
Freq.
Word
Meaning

舞

to dance

舞台

stage

舞蹈

dancing

跳舞

to dance

舞会

dance

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*k.m(r)aʔ

mjuX

wǔ

dance (v.)


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 45.8914% of movies

319th most common character in movies

1144th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

14

Unicode

U+821E

Shuowen

“舞，樂也。用足相背。从舛，舞聲。，古文舞从羽、亡。”
Sources

季旭昇《說文新證》p.472

林志強《《文源》評注》p.203



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