狱 meaning and stroke order
Prison, jail; case; lawsuit
How to write 狱, stroke by stroke
9 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
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Meaning of 狱
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- prison
How 狱 is built
Ideographic (compound meaning) character. A guard dog 犭 talking 讠 to a prisoner 犬.
Radical: 犭 (dog), shared by 88 characters on this site.
How to remember 狱
Picture two dogs, 犭 on the left and 犬 on the right, guarding the middle, where 讠 (speech) is trapped between them. Someone stuck talking between two guard dogs is in 狱 (yù), prison.
狱 rarely stands alone in modern Chinese. It mostly appears in words like 监狱 (jiānyù, prison), 出狱 (chūyù, to be released) and 地狱 (dìyù, hell). Example: 他去年出狱了。(Tā qùnián chūyù le.) He got out of prison last year.
Common mistake: Learners often write the middle part as 言 or leave it out, but in simplified 狱 it is the short form 讠, and the right side is 犬 with its dot, not 大. Also keep the fourth tone yù, not yú or yǔ.
Common words with 狱
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 监狱 | jiānyù | prison | HSK 7-9 |
| 地狱 | dìyù | hell; underworld; (Buddhism) Naraka; (coll.) (of humor, jokes, content etc) extremely dark | HSK 7-9 |
| 出狱 | chūyù | to be released from prison | |
| 入狱 | rùyù | to go to jail; to be sent to prison | |
| 越狱 | yuèyù | to break out of prison; to jailbreak (an iOS device etc) | |
| 炼狱 | liànyù | purgatory | |
| 狱警 | yùjǐng | prison officer | |
| 典狱长 | diǎnyùzhǎng | prison warden | |
| 逃狱 | táoyù | to escape (from prison); to jump bail | |
| 监狱长 | jiānyùzhǎng | prison warden | |
| 牢狱 | láoyù | prison | |
| 牢狱之灾 | láoyùzhīzāi | imprisonment | |
| 狱卒 | yùzú | jailer (old) |
狱 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Questions about 狱
How many strokes are in 狱?
狱 is written with 9 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 狱 mean?
狱 (yù) means prison, jail; case; lawsuit. A common word with it is 监狱 (jiānyù), meaning "prison".
How do you pronounce 狱?
狱 is pronounced yù, in the fourth tone (falling).
What is the radical of 狱?
The radical of 狱 is 犭, which carries the idea of "dog". Dictionaries list 狱 under this radical.
What is the traditional form of 狱?
The traditional form of 狱 is 獄. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau; 狱 is the simplified form used in mainland China and Singapore.
Is 狱 on the HSK exam?
Yes. 狱 is part of the HSK 7-9 character list in the HSK 3.0 standard.
What is the difference between 监狱 and 狱?
监狱 (jiānyù) is the normal everyday word for prison. 狱 by itself sounds literary or old-fashioned and is mainly used inside compounds such as 入狱 or 狱警.
Does 越狱 really mean jailbreaking a phone?
Yes. 越狱 (yuèyù) literally means to break out of prison, and it is also the common term for jailbreaking an iOS device. Context makes the meaning clear.