羽 meaning and stroke order
Feather, plume; wings
How to write 羽, stroke by stroke
6 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
Meaning of 羽
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- feather
- 5th note in pentatonic scale
How 羽 is built
Pictographic character. Two feathers or wings.
How to remember 羽
羽 (yǔ) is a picture of two feathers or wings side by side. Each half looks like 习, so imagine a bird with two matching wings spread open.
羽 rarely appears alone in everyday speech. It shows up in words like 羽毛 (yǔmáo, feather), 羽毛球 (yǔmáoqiú, badminton) and 羽绒服 (yǔróngfú, down jacket). Example: 冬天我穿羽绒服。(Dōngtiān wǒ chuān yǔróngfú.) In winter I wear a down jacket.
Common mistake: Learners sometimes say yù or yú instead of third tone yǔ, which can be confused with 雨 (yǔ, rain) only in writing context, not sound, since both are yǔ. In writing, the dots inside each half of 羽 slant up to the right, so do not write them as flat strokes or as a single vertical line.
Common words with 羽
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
羽 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Characters that contain 羽
Learning 羽 makes these easier to recognize and write.
Questions about 羽
How many strokes are in 羽?
羽 is written with 6 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 羽 mean?
羽 (yǔ) means feather, plume; wings. A common word with it is 羽毛球 (yǔmáoqiú), meaning "badminton; shuttlecock".
How do you pronounce 羽?
羽 is pronounced yǔ, in the third tone (dipping).
Is 羽 on the HSK exam?
Yes. 羽 is part of the HSK 5 character list in the HSK 3.0 standard.
Why does 羽 appear in characters like 翅 and 翻?
羽 often acts as a meaning component in characters related to wings or flying. 翅 (chì) means wing, and 翻 (fān) originally relates to flapping or turning over like wings.
What does 羽 mean in Chinese music?
羽 is the name of the fifth note in the traditional Chinese pentatonic scale. You will mostly see this sense in writing about classical music theory.