兔
Character Story & Explanation
兔 appears in everyday Chinese in zodiac contexts ('2023 is the Year of the Rabbit'), food terms (兔肉 tùròu, 'rabbit meat'), and idioms like 守株待兔 (shǒu zhū dài tù, 'waiting by a tree stump for a rabbit' — meaning futile hope). It’s also used in compound words like 兔子 (tùzi, 'rabbit') and 玉兔 (yùtù, 'Jade Rabbit', the lunar rover launched by CNSA in 2013).
Historically, 兔 evolved from a Bronze Age pictograph showing a rabbit’s head, ears, and hind legs. The modern form retains the ear-like top (⺈) and simplified lower body (儿), standardized in the Qin dynasty’s small seal script. No oracle bone inscriptions survive for 兔, but its earliest confirmed use appears in Warring States bamboo texts referring to hunting and sacrifice.
The Chinese character 兔 (tù) represents 'rabbit' and is an eighth-stroke character with the 儿 (ér, 'child') radical at its base — a stylistic simplification reflecting the rabbit’s upright, leaping posture in traditional calligraphy. Unlike Western alphabetic systems, 兔 is a logograph: its form evokes visual memory rather than phonetic sound alone. Its pronunciation tù is tone-specific (fourth tone), crucial for meaning differentiation — e.g., tú (with second tone) means 'soil', while tù unambiguously denotes the animal.
In Chinese cosmology and folklore, the rabbit holds profound symbolic weight — most famously as the Moon Rabbit (月兔 yuètù), said to pound immortality elixirs on the moon, a motif appearing in Han dynasty tomb murals and Tang poetry. This contrasts with Western associations where rabbits often symbolize fertility or timidity (e.g., 'breeding like rabbits'), but rarely celestial divinity or alchemical wisdom.
Culturally, 兔 features prominently in the Chinese zodiac (Year of the Rabbit), representing gentleness, vigilance, and good fortune — traits valued in Confucian and Daoist thought. Unlike the Easter Bunny (a commercialized, anthropomorphized figure delivering eggs), the Chinese rabbit embodies quiet resilience and intuitive grace. Its HSK Level 5 status reflects functional literacy: learners encounter it in idioms, news about zodiac years, and ecological discussions — not just vocabulary lists.
Example Sentences
Common Compounds
Similar Characters — Don't Mix These Up
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