余 (yú) is a Chinese character meaning “surplus”. It is written from 人 (person) and 一 (one) and 朩 (hooked tree element (木 written with a hook, used inside 余)), and takes 7 strokes.
Build the character for “surplus; left over”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
人 + 一 + 朩
Top–middle–bottom structure
- 人 person · rén unknown
- 一 one · yī unknown
- 朩 wood shape whose slanting strokes stand apart from the vertical unknown
Structure from: Unicode U+4F59; modern decomposition candidate checked against hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 stroke geometry (strokes 0-1 人, stroke 2 一, strokes 3-6 朩)
Memory aid
A person (人) stands over one (一) small hooked tree (朩) — after the harvest, that one tree is what is left over.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
7 strokes
In real words
- 冗余rǒng yúredundancy; redundant余 = yú
- 残余cán yúremnant; remains; leftover余 = yú
Go deeper
All readings
surplus; remaining
surplus; remaining; left over; more than; (literary) I, me
剩下的；多出来的。也表示整数之后的零头。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 冗余rǒng yúredundancy; redundant余 = yú
- 残余cán yúremnant; remains; leftover余 = yú
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 余 mean?
余 (yú) means surplus; remaining; left over; more than; (literary) I, me.
How do you pronounce 余?
It is pronounced yú.
What parts is 余 made of?
人 (person) and 一 (one) and 朩 (hooked tree element (木 written with a hook, used inside 余)). The recorded source is: Unicode U+4F59; modern decomposition candidate checked against hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 stroke geometry (strokes 0-1 人, stroke 2 一, strokes 3-6 朩). Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 余 have?
7. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 余?
人. 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 余?
Common ones are 冗余. The reading of 余 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.