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ruò
HSK 4freq #2968

Meanings

CC-CEDICT

ruò
  1. 1.weak; feeble
  2. 2.young
  3. 3.inferior; not as good as
  4. 4.(following a decimal or fraction) slightly less than

CC-CEDICT · CC BY-SA

Wiktionary

  1. 1.weak; feeble
  2. 2.fragile; delicate

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Etymology

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 弓 (“bow”) + 彡 (“hair, meaning "decoration" in this case”)—a decorative bow that is functionally inferior. Or it might be indicating that the bow is shaking, which implies a worn-out bow. An alternate etymology is 𢎥 + 𢎥, 𢎥 being a variant of 卷. Probably cognate with 柔 (OC *mlju, “soft”), see there for more (STEDT). Schuessler (2007; p. 448) and Hill (2019; p. 21) compare this word to Tibetan ཉོག་ཉོང (nyog nyong, “soft, weak”). Hill also adds Burmese ညက် (nyak, “to be smooth”) to the comparison. From this, one can reconstruct Proto-Sino-Tibetan *njewk.

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Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

Example sentences

Sentences from Tatoeba · CC-BY 2.0 FR

More examples & usage (AI)

Synonyms

Antonyms

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Derived terms

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Related words