Skip to content

淤

Tap the pinyin to hear it

silt; river sludge; to silt up; choked with silt; variant of 瘀[yu1]

Make a writing worksheet

Strokes
11
Radical
水 +8
Structure
Left–right 左右
Traditional
淤
Common rank
#2,876
Unicode
U+6DE4

Formation & memory

Break the character into parts you already know.

How 淤 is formed

Phono-semantic compound (形声字)

氵 meaning “water” + 於 sound ( wū )

Components 氵 於

How to remember it

silt · Heisig RSH #1731

水 water + compass + umbrella + ice

Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.

Words with 淤

The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.

WordPinyinMeaning
出淤泥而不染 chū yū ní ér bù rǎn lit. to grow out of the mud unsullied (idiom); fig. to be principled and incorruptible
淤血斑 yū xuè bān bruise; patch of bruising
清淤 qīng yū to dredge; to remove sludge
淤血 yū xuè variant of 瘀血[yu1 xue4]
淤青 yū qīng bruise; contusion
淤伤 yū shāng bruising
淤塞 yū sè choked with silt; silted up
淤积 yū jī to silt up; silt; sediment; ooze; slurry
淤泥 yū ní silt; sludge; ooze
淤浅 yū qiǎn to silt up
淤灌 yū guàn to warp (fertilize land by flooding)
淤滞 yū zhì silted up; obstructed by silt; variant of 瘀滯|瘀滞[yu1 zhi4]
祛淤 qū yū variant of 祛瘀[qu1 yu1]

Sound family

Characters sharing the sound component 於 — compare how they read.

CharacterPinyinMeaning
於 sound part wū at, in, on; to, from; alas!
瘀 yū hematoma, contusion
阏 è to block, to obstruct, to stop up
菸 yū tobacco, dried leaves; to fade