您
Meanings
CC-CEDICT
- 1.you (courteous, as opposed to informal 你[nǐ])
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Wiktionary
- 1.you (usually singular, may be plural)
- 2.you (plural)
- 3.thou; you (singular)
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Etymology
Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 你 (“you”) + 心 (“heart”). 心 (MC sim) may also phonetically signify the original -m ending (Yuan et al., 1996). This character was not listed in Sui/Tang rhyme books. First attested in Jin/Yuan-era literature, when it was also written as 恁 and probably pronounced as *nim at the time (Lü, 1940; Norman, 1988). The pronoun was used both in the singular and the plural. The pronoun used in Jin/Yuan-era literature is generally thought to be a fusion of 你們／你们 (nǐmen, “you (plural)”) or 你每 (nǐměi, “you (plural)”) (Lü, 1940; Norman, 1988). Compare 怹 (tān, “he, she (polite)”) ( < 他們／他们 (tāmen, “they”)). The honorific usage may simply be a development of the plural usage (Norman, 1988); compare English you, French vous. However, others have argued for a different etymology for the honorific pronoun. Wang (1984) and Lü (1985) argue that it is a contraction of 你老 (“you (honorific for seniors)”): /ni lau/ → /nil/ → /nin/. Alternatively, Zhang (2001) suggests that it comes from 仁 (MC nyin), an honorific used in Buddhist texts from the Han dynasty. In Cantonese and Hakka, this character is simply read as 你; in Teochew, it is read as 汝.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Stroke order
Components
Components from cjk-decomp · MIT
Example sentences
您呢？
How about you?
您呢？
What about you?
我爱您。
I love you.
輪到您了。
It's your turn.
您在忙吗？
Are you busy?
您吸烟吗？
Do you smoke?
Sentences from Tatoeba · CC-BY 2.0 FR
More examples & usage (AI)
Synonyms
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Derived terms
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA