流

Mandarin · pinyin liú

Meanings

  1. to flow
  2. to disseminate
  3. to circulate or spread
  4. to move or drift
  5. to degenerate
  6. to banish or send into exile
  7. stream of water or sth resembling one
  8. class, rate or grade
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Characters in this entry

流
liú · flow, circulate, drift; class
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2 · liu2

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1character link45same-tone records
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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Rime · Wiktionary

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

lau4

Cantonese word readings for 流. 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

  1. to flow
  2. to drift; to wander
  3. class; grade
  4. (of water, electricity, other fluids) current; flow; stream
  5. to spread; to scatter; to disseminate
  6. (physics) short for 流明 (liúmíng, “lumen”)
  7. (mathematics) flow
  8. (computing) stream
  9. (Cantonese, Hakka) of poor quality
  10. (Cantonese) fake; ingenuine

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

流 · liu2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 64,948
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record流 流 [liu2] /to flow/to disseminate/to circulate or spread/to move or drift/to degenerate/to banish or send into exile/stream of water or sth resembling one/class, rate or grade/