曰 (yuē): to speak, to say

曰 (yuē) is a Chinese character meaning “to speak.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (structural) and 一 (structural). It ranks #1644 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 曰 picture of an open 一 mouth 口. Its radical form 曰 (say) appears in many related characters such as 更 (gēng, to change or replace), 替 (tì, to substitute for), 曲 (qū, bent).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 曰 say4 strokesFrequency #1644口 structural一 structural

Definitions

  1. to speak
  2. to say

Etymology & Origin

曰

ideographicPicture of an open 一 mouth 口

Decomposition: ⿴口一 (layout: full-surround)

Components:口structural一structural

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
美其名曰měi qí míng yuēto call by the glorified name of (idiom)
子曰zǐ yuēConfucius says:
号曰hào yuēto be named
诗曰shī yuēa poem goes:
4
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

曰 appears in 4 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 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 曰 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

谓wèi
0.54110,644 co-occurrences
叹tàn
0.4882,130 co-occurrences
昔xī
0.4443,180 co-occurrences
泣qì
0.4401,890 co-occurrences
涕tì
0.431696 co-occurrences
答dā
0.4306,546 co-occurrences
臣chén
0.42510,554 co-occurrences
君jūn
0.3897,110 co-occurrences
莽mǎng
0.388816 co-occurrences
恭gōng
0.3872,502 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

美其名曰měiqímíngyuēHSK 7+

to call it by the fine-sounding name of

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这个曰字在古汉语中有不同的含义。

zhè gě yuē zì zài gǔ hàn yǔ zhōng yǒu bù tóng de hán yì .

The character "日" had different meanings in classical Chinese.

Character Family

曰 Radical Family — Characters sharing the say radical

曹cáo更gēng曲qū替tì

Related Characters

更gēng替tì曲qū曹cáo

Homophones — Characters pronounced yuē

钥yuè月yuè岳yuè悦yuè阅yuè跃yuè粤yuè越yuè

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 曰 (yuē) mean in Chinese?
曰 (yuē) primarily means "to speak." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1644 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 曰 have?
曰 is written with 4 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 曰?
The radical associated with 曰 is 曰 (say). This radical appears in many characters related to say.
What are the components of 曰?
曰 is composed of: 口 (structural), 一 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿴口一 with a full-surround layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 曰?
Common words with 曰 include: 美其名曰 (měi qí míng yuē, "to call by the glorified name of (idiom)"); 子曰 (zǐ yuē, "Confucius says:"); 号曰 (hào yuē, "to be named"); 诗曰 (shī yuē, "a poem goes:"). There are over 4 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 曰 (yuē)?
Several characters share the pronunciation yuē: 钥 (key), 月 (moon, month), 岳 (wife's parents and paternal uncles), 悦 (pleased), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 曰 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 曰 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.