漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People
優: tenderness, excel
Also: surpass, actor, superiority, gentleness
JLPT N317 strokesGrade 6Your ink: 白 Not met
亻 carries the meaning · 憂 gives the sound
17 strokes
Three readings, and the words that use each
ユウyuu · on'yomi · in compounds
- 俳優はいゆうactor, actress
- 男優だんゆうactor
- 女優じょゆうactress
- 優先権ゆうせんけんpriority
- 優等生ゆうとうせいhonor student
- 優越感ゆうえつかんsuperiority complex
- 優秀なゆうしゅうなsuperior, excellent
- 優雅なゆうがなelegant, refined
- 優勝するゆうしょうするwin a championship
- 優先するゆうせんするprioritize
やさしいyasashii · kun'yomi · on its own
- 優しいやさしいtender, kind, gentle
すぐれるsugureru · kun'yomi
- 優れるすぐれるexcel
Also read ウ, まさる, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
成り立ち
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Phono-semantic compound (形聲)人, as 亻 (meaning) + 憂 (sound)
Source: Wiktionary, 優 (rev. 91725559), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“See the person standing tall, ready to interact with the world! When this radical appears on the left, it signals that the kanji describes a human quality, a social relationship, or an action that people perform.”
繋がり
Connections
Ink shades, lightest to darkest: 白 Not met, 淡 Met, 中 Learning, 濃 Familiar, 印 Mastered
Also read ウ
10 kanji share this on'yomiIn ChineseSimplified 优 · traditional, as in Japanese · yōu
Japan keeps the traditional form 優; mainland China simplifies it to 优.
- Simplified
- 优 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 優 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin yōu most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.
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