About
The character 要 (yào) first appeared as a pictograph depicting two hands on a woman's (女) waist, signifying the human waist. In its current form, the upper component looks like 西 but evolved from that hand imagery, while the lower 女 remains unchanged. Later, 要 was phonetically borrowed to write the verb "want" and also came to represent abstract concepts such as "important" or "essential". Because these borrowed uses became primary, the original meaning was reassigned to a new character, 腰 (yāo), which combines 要 with the flesh radical 月 (yuè) to explicitly denote the waist.
Etymology Hide
Example Sentences Hide
我要吃苹果。
我明天要去学校。
你不要忘记带书包。
我们必须要努力学习。
你想要喝茶还是咖啡？
这封信要寄到上海。
要是下雨，我们就不去了。
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