要

Translingual

Stroke order

Etymology

Pictogram (象形): a woman (女) with two hands pointing to her midsection.

Original meaning was "waist" (now 腰). The hands gradually shifted upwards; the 覀 in the modern form evolved from the hands and the woman's head.

Han character

要 (radical 146 西+3, 9 strokes, cangjie input 一田女 (MWV), four-corner 1040₄, composition ⿱西女)

1. necessary, essential
2. necessity

Derived characters

• 腰 覅

References

• KangXi: page 1128, character 16
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 34768
• Dae Jaweon: page 1597, character 4
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 4, page 2805, character 8
• Unihan data for U+8981

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Cantonese

Hanzi

要 (Yale yiu1, yiu3)

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Japanese

See also 要する

Kanji

要 (grade 4 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Readings

• On: よう (yō), from えう (yeu)
• Kun: いる (iru), もとめる (motomeru), かなめ (kaname), ぬま (numa [archaic]), ぬみ (numi [archaic])

Compounds

• 重要
• 要塞 (ようさい, yōsai)

Etymology 1

Noun

要 (hiragana よう, romaji yō)

1. cornerstone
2. requirement

Etymology 2

Noun

要 (hiragana かなめ, romaji kaname)

1. pivot, cornerstone, keystone

Proper noun

要 (hiragana かなめ, romaji Kaname)

1. A male given name

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Korean

Hanja

要 (hangeul 요, revised yo, McCune-Reischauer yo, Yale yo)

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Mandarin

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

Verb

要 (traditional and simplified, Pinyin yāo)

1. to demand, to ask, to request, to coerce
2. to want, will, going to (as future auxiliary), may, must
   • John 1.7

     这人来，为要作见证，就是为光作见证，叫众人因他可以信。

     Zhè rén lái, wèi yào zuò jiànzhèng, jiùshì wèi guāng zuò jiànzhèng, jiào zhòngrén yīn tā kĕyǐ xìn.

     The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

Hanzi

要 (pinyin yào (yao4), Wade-Giles yao⁴)

Compounds

• 要好

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Min Nan

Hanji

要 (traditional and simplified, POJ iau, iàu)

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Vietnamese

Han character

要 (yếu, éo, eo, yêu)