约yuē
Character evolution
约
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Simplified · Today
繁体
Traditional Chinese
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Shuowen
约. The left side is the silk radical 纟, indicating a bundle of silk; the right side 勺 is a phonetic component. In oracle bone script the character depicted silk threads bound together, giving the original meaning “to bind”. The shape was chosen because the semantic field concerns tying or confining, and the phonetic component supplies the sound.
Pinyin
yuē· HSK 2