DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT
油
Mandarin · pinyin yóu
Meanings
- oil
- fat
- grease
- petroleum
- to apply tung oil, paint or varnish
- oily
- greasy
- glib
- cunning
Characters in this entry
- 油
- yóu · oil, fat, grease, lard; paints
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
2 · you2
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
Connected dictionary
1character link45same-tone records
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.Read this spelling in Classical texts
Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.
Compare dictionary sources Rime · Wiktionary
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
jau4
Cantonese word readings for 油. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.
CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack
Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section
Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.
character
- name of an ancient river
- oil: fat, grease, lard, etc.
- petroleum; fuel
- to paint
- (Cantonese) short for 油漆 (“paint”)
- (Cantonese) to colour (with crayons, coloured pencils, oil pastel, etc.)
- (Cantonese) short for 油門／油门 (yóumén, “accelerator; gas pedal; throttle”)
- (Cantonese) oily
- to be grease-stained
- sly; glib
- vigorous, abundant
- shiny
- sweet-tempered, acquiescent
- flippant and insincere
- dark
- (chiefly Taiwan, originally ACG, slang, sometimes self-deprecatory) resembling a weeb; obsessive towards ACG
- a surname
character
- (obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) alternative form of 釉 (yòu, “to glaze”)
- used in 浩油
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack