Chinese Character Wiki
都

dōu, dū

metropolis

Phonosemantic compound. ⻏ represents the meaning and 者 represents the sound. Based on the meaning "large city, capital", which is the meaning when pronounced "dū". When pronounced "dōu", it has the unrelated meaning "all", etymologically related to 多 (many).

Components
者 sound component

者  Sound component

zhě

  

one who...

⻏ meaning component

⻏  Meaning component

yì

  

city

⻏ is a component form of 邑.

Evolution

都 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
都 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

都  

dōu

metropolis, capital; all, the whole; elegant, refined; all; both; entirely; (used for emphasis) even; already; (not) at all

都  

Dū

surname Du

都  

dū

capital city; metropolis

Most common words with 都
Freq.
Word
Meaning

都

all

都会

city

成都

Chengdu subprovincial city and capital of Sichuan province 四川 in southwest China

全都

all

首都

capital (city)

Component uses

Sound component in 1 character (0 verified)

嘟

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*tˤa

tu

dū

capital city


Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 99.9039% of movies

45th most common character in movies

68th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Unicode

U+90FD

Shuowen

“都，有先君之舊宗廟曰都。从邑，者聲。《周禮》距國五百里為都。”


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