呜 (wū): (onom.) for humming or whimpering

呜 (wū) is a Chinese character meaning “(onom.) for humming or whimpering.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 乌 (phonetic). It ranks #2467 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 呜 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 叫 (jiào, to call, to be called), 右 (yòu, (bound form) right).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth7 strokesFrequency #2467口 semantic乌 phonetic

Definitions

  1. (onom.) for humming or whimpering

Etymology & Origin

呜

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口乌 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic乌phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Practice writing 呜 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
呜呼wū hūalas
呜呜wū wū(interj) boo hoo
呜咽wū yèto sob
一命呜呼yī mìng wū hūto die (idiom)
呜呜祖拉wū wū zǔ lāvuvuzela (horn) (loanword)
呜呼哀哉wū hū āi zāialas
6
Total compounds
83
As first character
0
As last character
17
As middle character

呜 appears in 6 compound words: 83 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 17 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 呜 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

嘿hēi
0.676480 co-occurrences
呀yā
0.605438 co-occurrences
咽yān
0.590390 co-occurrences
呼hū
0.5822,436 co-occurrences
哀āi
0.539570 co-occurrences
涕tì
0.48266 co-occurrences
咕gū
0.42436 co-occurrences
酱jiàng
0.41236 co-occurrences
啊a
0.40766 co-occurrences
哇wā
0.39342 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

一命呜呼yīmìngwūhūHSK 7+

to die; to drop dead

phrase
呜呼哀哉wūhū'āizāiHSK 7+

alas; alack; wellaway; to die; to pass away

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他呜干舌燥地讲了两个小时，终于说服了大家。

tā wū gān jī zào dì jiǎng le liǎng gě xiǎo shí , zhōng yú shuō fú le dà jiā .

He talked for two hours, his voice hoarse and his tongue parched, until he finally won everyone over.

中国新闻网·体育Jun 2026

（美加墨世界杯）世界杯揭幕夜：呜呜祖拉在南非响起

( měi jiā mò shì jiè bēi ) shì jiè bēi jiē mù yè : wū wū zǔ lā zài nán fēi xiǎng qǐ

(USA-Canada-Mexico World Cup) World Cup Opening Night: Vuvuzelas Sound in South Africa

Tatoeba

每个人都爱呜呜塞拉！

Měi gè rén dōu ài wūwū sāi lā!

Everybody loves the vuvuzelas!

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 口 (mouth) component

和hé知zhī问wèn呢ne叫jiào吧ba吗ma吃chī号hào哪nǎ

Related Characters

口kǒu叫jiào右yòu号hào吃chī同tóng名míng后hòu吗ma吧ba

Homophones — Characters pronounced wū

物wù务wù五wǔ武wǔ误wù屋wū午wǔ舞wǔ乌wū污wū

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 呜 (wū) mean in Chinese?
呜 (wū) primarily means "(onom.) for humming or whimpering." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2467 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 呜 have?
呜 is written with 7 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 呜?
The radical associated with 呜 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 呜?
呜 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 乌 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口乌 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 呜?
Common words with 呜 include: 呜呼 (wū hū, "alas"); 呜呜 (wū wū, "(interj) boo hoo"); 呜咽 (wū yè, "to sob"); 一命呜呼 (yī mìng wū hū, "to die (idiom)"); 呜呜祖拉 (wū wū zǔ lā, "vuvuzela (horn) (loanword)"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 呜 (wū)?
Several characters share the pronunciation wū: 物 ((bound form) thing), 务 (affair), 五 (five), 武 (martial), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 呜 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 呜 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.