友

Translingual

Stroke order

Stroke order

Han character

友 (Kangxi radical 29, 又+2, 4 strokes, cangjie input 大水 (KE), four-corner 4004₇, composition ⿸𠂇又)

References

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 165, character 6
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 3119
• Dae Jaweon: page 374, character 18
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 1, page 391, character 1
• Unihan data for U+53CB

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Chinese

simp. and trad.		友

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 友
Shang	Western Zhou	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Characters in the same phonetic series (又) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 

	Old Chinese
絠	*kɯːʔ
醢	*qʰɯːʔ
珛	*qʰʷɯs
栯	*ɢʷɯʔ, *qʷɯ
有	*ɢʷɯʔ
友	*ɢʷɯʔ
右	*ɢʷɯʔ, *ɢʷɯs
宥	*ɢʷɯs
囿	*ɢʷɯs, *ɡʷɯ
侑	*ɢʷɯs
酭	*ɢʷɯs
姷	*ɢʷɯs
又	*ɢʷɯs
佑	*ɢʷɯs
祐	*ɢʷɯs
賄	*qʰʷɯːʔ
蛕	*qʰʷɯːʔ, *ɡʷɯː
烠	*ɡʷɯː
倄	*ɢraːw, *ɢʷɯːʔ
鮪	*ɢʷɯʔ
洧	*ɢʷɯʔ
痏	*ɢʷɯʔ
郁	*qʷɯ
戫	*qʷɯ
哊	*ɡʷɯ

Ideogrammic compound (會意／会意) : 又 (“hand”) + 又 (“hand”) – two right hands meeting in friendship. Also phono-semantic (形聲／形声) , from 又 (OC *ɢʷɯs).

Etymology

Endoactive derivation of 右 (OC *ɢʷɯʔ, “right”) (Schuessler, 2007).

Definitions

(deprecated template usage) 友

1. friend; companion
2. fraternity
3. (Cantonese, colloquial, slightly impolite) guy; bloke (Classifier: 條／条; 班)

   西裝友／西装友 [Cantonese]  ―  sai¹ zong¹ jau^5-2 [Jyutping]  ―  guy in a suit

4. a surname

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Japanese

Kanji

友

(grade 2 “Kyōiku” kanji)

1. friend

Readings

• Go-on: う (u)
• Kan-on: ゆう (yū, Jōyō)^{←いう (iu, historical)}
• Kun: とも (tomo, 友, Jōyō)

Etymology 1

Kanji in this term
友
とも Grade: 2
kun’yomi

For pronunciation and definitions of 友 – see the following entry.

【とも】 [noun] friend, companion, comrade, pal [noun] member of the same category Alternative spelling 朋

(This term, 友, is an alternative spelling of the above term.)

Etymology 2

Proper noun

友(ゆう) • (Yū) 

1. a male given name

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Korean

Hanja

友 (eumhun 벗 우 (beot u))

1. friend, companion

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Vietnamese

Han character

友: Hán Nôm readings: hữu

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.