Yǔ 雨
The character for ‘rain’, and radical 173 of the 214 Kangxi radicals, under which characters for snow, thunder and other weather are filed.
Meaning
Unihan defines 雨 as ‘rain; rainy’. On top of a character it is flattened, as in 雪 ‘snow’ and 雷 ‘thunder’, both filed under it. Mandarin reads it yǔ; Japanese, ame.
Origin and history
Wieger recorded several explanations. “According to some, the four points represent the drops,” the upper line the skies, and other strokes the clouds; others saw in it the regular falling of drops from the sky. He also noted that “An ancient form simply represented a shower of rain.”
Weather under rain
雪 ‘snow’ is radical 173 with three strokes more and 雷 ‘thunder’ with five. Unihan also gives 雪 a second sense, ‘wipe away shame, avenge’. Water, 水, is radical 85, a separate section of the dictionary.
Read next
- Next in Chinese radicalsMù 木The character for ‘tree’ and ‘wood’, and radical 75 of the 214 Kangxi radicals, under which characters for trees and things of wood are filed.
- The same shape in Chinese mythology and symbolsDouble happiness (囍)囍, the character 喜 (xǐ, joy) written twice and joined into one sign, read shuangxi, “double happiness”. It is the sign of a Chinese wedding, pasted on the door and worked into the couple’s gifts and furnishings.
See also
Shuǐ 水, Rén 人, Nǚ 女, Zǐ 子, Kǒu 口, Xīn 心.
Sources
- Unihan data for U+96E8, Unicode Han Database (Unihan), Unicode Consortium, kRSUnicode; kTotalStrokes; kDefinition; kMandarin; kJapaneseKun
- Unihan data for U+96EA, Unicode Han Database (Unihan), Unicode Consortium, kRSUnicode; kDefinition
- Unihan data for U+96F7, Unicode Han Database (Unihan), Unicode Consortium, kRSUnicode; kDefinition
- The Unicode Standard, chapter 18 (Han), The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0, Chapter 18: East Asia, Unicode Consortium, 18.1.8 Radical-Stroke Indices; 18.1.14 Kangxi Radicals and CJK Radicals Supplement
- Chinese Characters (Léon Wieger, 1927), Léon Wieger, Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification, translated by L. Davrout, second edition (1927), Catholic Mission Press, Hsien-hsien (Internet Archive full text), Lesson 125, second series
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from letters and numbers or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
Added .