刘 · liú
surname; kill, destroy
Meanings & readings
Meaning & readings
surname; kill, destroy
- Mandarin
- liú
- Cantonese
- lau4
Unihan definitions and selected character readings. Read the word to establish its pronunciation in context.
Readings in Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese
Readings recorded for 刘 in other language traditions. These are character-level records, not word translations or interchangeable pronunciations.
Japanese 日本語
Grouped by the source’s kana notation; no frequency ranking is implied.
On’yomi · katakana
Kun’yomi · hiragana
Katakana generally indicates on’yomi; hiragana generally indicates kun’yomi. The source does not identify everyday, rare, historical or name use per reading. Kana strings are preserved, including any written endings; consult a Japanese word entry for actual use.
Go deeperJisho ↗Wiktionary ↗
Korean 한국어
Not recorded for this exact character in this dataset. This does not mean the language has no reading.
Vietnamese Tiếng Việt
Not recorded for this exact character in this dataset. This does not mean the language has no reading.
Form & structure
Writing & identity
- Unicode
- U+5218
- Radical
- 刀 · 18
- Strokes
- 6 · Unihan
- Residual
- 4
Source record · Unihan 17.0. Individual senses and historical claims have not yet been reviewed by zimai.
Stroke order
6 strokesModern stroke order; regional conventions can differ. Stroke medians: Make Me a Hanzi via HanziLookupJS, drawn as an even pen line.
Graphical structure
How to read these symbols
⿰ left–right · ⿱ above–below · ⿻ overlap. Dotted boxes indicate positions, not missing characters. Each symbol describes the components that follow it; nested symbols describe a component in more detail. Source codes identify alternative analyses, not a writing sequence or an etymology.
BabelStone IDS · 2025-06-27. Region tags are preserved; 〾 marks approximation and {n} identifies an unencoded source component. These describe graphical structure, not historical derivation.
Words & connections
Words using 刘
Character connections
No reverse component match in this collection.
History & distinctions
Related forms
劉
Unihan traditional/simplified variant properties. Conversion may depend on context.
Sources & reference
Evidence & next depth
Retained Unihan properties
- kMandarin
- liú
- kCantonese
- lau4
- kDefinition
- surname; kill, destroy
- kTotalStrokes
- 6
- kRSUnicode
- 18.4
- kTraditionalVariant
- U+5218 U+5289
- kSimplifiedVariant
- U+5218
- kTGH
- 2013:517
Readings across dictionaries
- Xiandai Hanyu · 1983
- liú 0724.040
- Tongyong Guifan · 2013
- liú 228.020