■ radical

rú

How it’s built

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 女 represents the sound. 口 (mouth) indicates that the character is only "mouthed", i.e. only used for its phonetic value.

口

meaning

mouth

女

sound

woman; female — The pronunciation of 如 was similar to 女 in old Chinese, but they no longer sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes.

Appears in

Characters that use 如 as a component, most common first.

恕shùto excuse 絮xùcotton padding 茹rúroots