Kilo Lingo

(hū) - literary particle; appears in adverbs like 似乎, 几乎 in Mandarin

Traditional: 乎

Line drawing of 乎
Coloured illustration of 乎
#5143 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

literary particle; appears in adverbs like 似乎, 几乎

Word origin

A pictographic character originally depicting breath or sound rising and being released; it survives as a literary final particle and inside adverbs such as 几乎 (jīhū), almost.

Origin
pictographic
Root
a drawing of breath or sound being exhaled

Stroke order

Stroke order for 乎

Examples

He doesn't seem very happy.

I almost forgot about this.

She seems to be waiting for someone.

Almost everyone has arrived.

乎 (hū) is a classical particle living on in modern adverbs such as 似乎 (sì hū) "seemingly" and 几乎 (jī hū) "almost".

Appears in 4 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 乎.

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This word is part of lesson 103.