yào medicine; drug; to poison

Made up of [ cǎo grass; herb radical 140]
Alternative traditional form of character:
Made with 9 strokes.
Original showed medicinal herbs giving harmony. The modern form has 'restrain' under the 'grass/herb' radical suggesting alleviate illness

Related characters


Also uses cǎo component: cài (vegetable) cǎo (grass) ; chá (tea) ; dǒng (to understand) ; huā (flower) ; jié (joint) ; (bitter) ; lán (blue) ; láo (to toil) ; mǎn (to fill) ; māo (cat) ; měng (Mongol) ; (do not) ; píng (apple) ; (grape) ; qián (front) ; ruò (to seem) ; (revive) ; táo (grapes) ; (skill) ; yīng (flower) ; zàng (treasury) ; zhēng (to steam)

Sounds same

yào (want)

Different tone

yāo (youngest) ; yǎo (to bite)

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Pronunciation

Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License

Proverbs

对症下药 duì zhèng xià yào Take the right measures to solve a problem to achieve the desired result
换汤不换药 huàn tāng bú huàn yaò Not getting to the root of a problem, making superficial changes
苦口良药 kǔ kǒu liáng yaò It takes hard work and discomfort to achieve something worthwhile