Chinese Characters Starting with "Y start"

Every character has an origin. Discover the pictographs, myths, and history behind each Chinese character — with pinyin, stroke order, HSK level, and audio pronunciation.

yǒu

Though it looks like a full character, 泑 hides a

A water radical + ‘ease’ character that doesn’t

yuán

This 7-stroke river name hides a poetic secret: it

yún

This 'cloud-water' character doesn't mean cloudy w

This 7-stroke river name hides a miniature landsca

Born in 1919 as China's first custom-made element

This 'nurture' character isn't about teaching—it'

yīn

This 10-stroke character began as a drum-beating p

This 'extermination' character hides a corpse (歹)

yín

This 'remote' character doesn’t exist in oracle b

yǔn

This character’s ‘corpse’ radical (歹) isn’t d

This 12-stroke ‘sickness’ character hides a coll

This rare character looks like a minimalist flute

This character looks like someone yawning while le

yǐn

A rare wood-shaping tool whose name morphed into a

yīng

Though it means ‘cherry,’ 樱 never appears alone

yōu

This 'harrow' character hides an ancient farming s

yán

This 'eaves' character hides a timber roof yawning

A rare, hyper-specific tree character — one chara

yǐn

This rare woodworking tool gave rise to a profound

yuè

Born as a poetic invention — not ancient pictogra

yǒu

This 'ritual bonfire' character hides a Zhou dynas

Though it looks like a tree with a 'you' climbing

yíng

This 'pillar' character doesn’t just hold up roof

yóu

A rare, Japan-borrowed botanical term — not in HS

yáng

This 'poplar' character hides a solar secret: its

This rare character survives unchanged for 2,200 y

Though it looks like a simple tree character, 椰 i

This character looks like a tree sprouting a perfe

This rare shrub-character hides a Bronze Age land-

yuān

This rare literary character depicts crookedness s

This character hasn’t changed in 3,000 years — s

A rare botanical character born in the 2nd century

yǒng

This ultra-rare character hides in plain sight: id

yòu

This 'pomelo' character hides a pun: its pronuncia

This 'oar' character hides a pulling motion in its

yùn

A phono-semantic ghost — 枟 looks like 'wood + cl

This 8-stroke character looks like a tree splittin

yǎo

This character’s 'double tree' shape doesn’t mea

A 3,000-year-old pictograph of a notched wooden po