Chinese Character Wiki
活

huó

live

Phonosemantic compound. 氵 represents the meaning and 𠯑 represents the sound.

Components
氵 meaning component

氵  Meaning component

shui, shuǐ

  

water

氵 is a component form of 水.

𠯑 sound component

𠯑  Sound component

guā

  

block the mouth

Later reanalyzed as the visually similar character 舌.

Evolution

活 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

活  

huó

live, exist, survive; lively; to live; alive; living; work; workmanship

Most common words with 活
Freq.
Word
Meaning

生活

life

活动

to exercise

活

to live

活力

energy

干活

to work

Component uses

Sound component in 2 characters (0 verified)

阔 闊

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[g]ʷˤat

hwat

huó

to live


Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 96.1557% of movies

216th most common character in movies

219th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+6D3B

Shuowen

“，水流聲。从水，聲。，或从。”


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