Phonetic Families & Components

Sound Roots & Semantic Radicals Explorer

Decode Chinese characters by their shared sound roots and see how semantic radicals split their meanings across tones.

Popular Roots:

叟

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

叟 (sǒu)

old gentleman; old man

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (叟)

How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:

4 Active Tones

Tone 1sōu

Tone 3sǒu

Tone 4shòu

Tone 5

Family Characters (12)

Root: 叟

叟

sǒu

Expansion

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

old gentleman; old man

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搜

sōu

HSK 5

扌(hand)

to search; variant of 蒐|搜[sou1]

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瘦

shòu

HSK 5

疒(sickness)

thin

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嫂

sǎo

HSK 7

女(woman)

(bound form) older brother's wife; sister-in-law

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艘

sōu

HSK 7

舟(boat)

classifier for ships

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嗖

sōu

Expansion

口(mouth)

(onom.) whooshing; swishing

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溲

sōu

Expansion

氵(water)

to urinate

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螋

sōu

Expansion

虫(insect)

used in 蠼螋[qu2 sou1]

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鄋

sōu

Expansion

阝(city)

see 鄋瞞|鄋瞒[Sou1 man2]

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锼

sōu

Expansion

钅(metal)

to engrave (metal of wood)

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颼

Expansion

風(wind)

—

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飕

sōu

Expansion

风(wind)

to blow (as of wind); sound of wind

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