首爾

简 首尔 · 繁 首爾
Mandarin · pinyin Shǒu ěr

Meanings

  1. Seoul, capital of South Korea (Chinese name adopted in 2005 to replace 漢城 Hàn chéng)
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Characters in this entry

首
shǒu · head; first; leader, chief; a poem; Kangxi radical 185
爾
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尔
ěr · you; that, those; final particle
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3–3 · Shou3 er3

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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.

首爾 · find source passages ↗ · 首尔 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

sau2 ji5

Cantonese word readings for 首爾. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

name

  1. (~市) Seoul (the capital city of South Korea)

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

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

首爾 · Shou3 er3
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 120,433
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record首爾 首尔 [Shou3 er3] /Seoul, capital of South Korea (Chinese name adopted in 2005 to replace 漢城|汉城[Han4 cheng2])/