Chinese Character Wiki
奴

nú

slave

Depicts a hand (又) behind a woman (女) slave's back forcing her to work.

Components
女 sound,iconic component

女  Sound Iconic component

nǚ, rǔ

  

woman

Depicts a woman slave. Also serves as a phonetic component.

又 iconic component

又  Iconic component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Depicts a hand forcing a slave to do work.

Evolution

奴 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

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

Bronze script

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

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
奴 Clerical script Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Clerical script

Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)
奴 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

奴  

nú

slave, servant; slave

Most common words with 奴
Freq.
Word
Meaning

奴隶

slave

奴

slave

匈奴

Xiongnu

奴役

to enslave

奴才

slave

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

帑

Sound component in 10 characters (3 verified)

拿 拏 努 怒 弩 呶 駑 驽 孥 胬

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*nˤa

nu

nú

slave


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 8.8259% of movies

1824th most common character in movies

1402nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

5

Unicode

U+5974

Shuowen

“奴，奴、婢，皆古之辠人也。《周禮》曰：‘其奴，男子入于辠隸，女子入于舂藁。’从女，从又。，古文奴，从人。”


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