雨

Etymology & Components

The Chinese character 雨 (yǔ) for "rain" is a pictograph that depicts rain falling from the sky. The earliest known form of the character, found in oracle bone inscriptions from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE), shows a simple representation of rain as a series of vertical lines. Over time, the character became more stylized, and the lines were replaced by dots. The modern form of the character, which was standardized in the Kangxi Dictionary in the 18th century, consists of three dots on the left side and four dots on the right side.The character 雨 is also used as a radical in other Chinese characters related to rain, such as 雪 (xuě) for "snow", 雾 (wù) for "fog", and 雹 (báo) for "hail".