乌 (wū) is a Chinese character meaning “crow”. It is written from ㇒ (left-falling stroke) and ㇆ (horizontal-turning hook stroke) and ㇉ (bent hook stroke) and ㇐ (horizontal stroke), and takes 4 strokes.
Build the character for “crow; black”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
㇒ + ㇆ + ㇉ + ㇐
Overlapping structure
- ㇒ left-falling stroke unknown
- ㇆ horizontal-turning hook stroke unknown
- ㇉ bent hook stroke unknown
- ㇐ horizontal stroke unknown
Structure from: Unicode U+4E4C and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection (four strokes: 撇 / 横折钩 / 竖折折钩 / 横)
Memory aid
A short left-falling stroke (㇒) is the crow's beak. Under it a horizontal-turning hook (㇆) closes the head — with no dot inside, because a crow is so black you cannot see its eye. The long turning hook (㇉) sweeps down and around as the body and tail, and the final horizontal (㇐) is the branch it perches on.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
4 strokes
In real words
- 乌云wū yúndark clouds; storm clouds乌 = wū
- 乌龟wū guītortoise; turtle乌 = wū
- 乌鸦wū yācrow乌 = wū
Go deeper
All readings
crow; black
crow; dark, black (as in 乌云, dark clouds)
乌鸦；也表示黑色、暗色，如「乌云」。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 乌云wū yúndark clouds; storm clouds乌 = wū
- 乌龟wū guītortoise; turtle乌 = wū
- 乌鸦wū yācrow乌 = wū
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 乌 mean?
乌 (wū) means crow; dark, black (as in 乌云, dark clouds).
How do you pronounce 乌?
It is pronounced wū.
What parts is 乌 made of?
㇒ (left-falling stroke) and ㇆ (horizontal-turning hook stroke) and ㇉ (bent hook stroke) and ㇐ (horizontal stroke). The recorded source is: Unicode U+4E4C and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection (four strokes: 撇 / 横折钩 / 竖折折钩 / 横). Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 乌 have?
4. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 乌?
丿. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 乌?
Common ones are 乌云. The reading of 乌 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.