Chinese Character Wiki
讀

dú, dòu

read

Phonosemantic compound. 言 represents the meaning and 𧸇 represents the sound.

Components
言 meaning component

言  Meaning component

yán

  

speech

𧸇 sound component

𧸇  Sound component

yù

  

to sell

The original sound component 𧸇 was later corrupted to the visually and semantically similar character 賣.

Evolution

讀 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
讀 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
讀 Clerical script Cao Wei (Three Kingdoms: 222-280 AD)

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

读 (讀) 

dú

read, study; pronounce; to read; to study; reading of word (i.e. pronunciation), similar to 拼音[pīn​yīn]

读 (讀) 

dòu

comma; phrase marked by pause

Most common words with 讀
Freq.
Word
Meaning

读

to read

读者

reader

读书

to study

阅读

to read

解读

to decipher

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.lˤok

duwk

dú

read (v.)


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 46.6923% of movies

817th most common character in movies

752nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

22

Simplified

读

Unicode

U+8B80

Shuowen

“讀，誦書也。从言，賣聲。”


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