鱼
Tap the pinyin to hear it
fish (CL:條|条[tiao2],尾[wei3]); used in the names of various aquatic animals that are not fish (including abalone 鮑魚|鲍鱼[bao4 yu2], alligators and crocodiles 鱷魚|鳄鱼[e4 yu2] and octopi 章魚|章鱼[zhang1 yu2])
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
Words with 鱼
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 海水鱼 | saltwater fish | |
| 鱼子 | fish eggs; roe | |
| 人鱼 | mermaid; dugong; sea cow; manatee; giant salamander | |
| 鱼水 | fish and water (metaphor for an intimate relationship or inseparability) | |
| 鱼头 | fish head; fig. upright and unwilling to compromise | |
| 鱼生 | sliced raw fish | |
| 三文鱼 | salmon (loanword) | |
| 大黄鱼 | Croceine croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea), a fish popular in Cantonese cooking | |
| 水清无鱼 | lit. water that is too clean holds no fish (idiom); fig. one who is too severe has no frie… | |
| 海鱼 | saltwater fish | |
| 白鱼 | whitefish | |
| 鱼台县 | Yutai, a county in Jining City 濟寧市|济宁市[Ji3 ning2 Shi4], Shandong | |
| 金鱼 | goldfish | |
| 鱼花 | fry; newly hatched fish | |
| 美人鱼 | mermaid | |
| 黄花鱼 | yellow croaker (fish); corvina | |
| 鱼水情 | close relationship as between fish and water | |
| 黄鱼车 | lit. croaker car; flatbed tricycle; delivery tricycle | |
| 木鱼花 | see 柴魚片|柴鱼片[chai2 yu2 pian4] | |
| 大鱼大肉 | dishes with generous amounts of meat and fish; lavish meal |
Sound family
These characters use 鱼 as their sound component — compare how they read.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 鱼 sound part | fish | |
| 稣 | to revive; to rise again | |
| 蓟 | cirsium, thistle; surname | |
| 鲰 | small fish; small; minnow |