樱 (yīng) · cherry (tree or blossom), cherry blossom

Meanings

1 cherry (tree or blossom)
2 cherry blossom

Characters

樱

yīng

cherry / cherry blossom

Examples

HSK 6

春天到了，樱花开满枝头。

Chūntiān dào le, yīnghuā kāi mǎn zhītóu.

Spring has arrived and cherry blossoms bloom all over the branches.

HSK 7-9

她的名字里有一个'樱'字，寓意美丽。

Tā de míngzi lǐ yǒu yí ge ' yīng ' zì, yùyì měilì.

Her name contains the character for cherry blossom, symbolizing beauty.

Tips

usage

樱 alone is a literary/poetic shorthand for 樱花 (cherry blossom) or 樱桃 (cherry). It is also used as a feminine given name in both Chinese and Japanese. The full compound 樱花 is the common word for cherry blossom.

Components

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

Left wood radical - pictograph of a tree with branches above and roots below. The indexing radical: a 樱 is the cherry tree, so wood is the natural semantic anchor. Groups with 桃 peach, 梅 plum, 杏 apricot, 柳 willow - the whole orchard of single-character fruit-tree names.

phonetic

婴 yīng

infant (phonetic)

Right 婴 supplies the sound yīng with no shift - a tidy phonetic. 婴 means infant or to encircle (originally a string of cowries around a baby's neck). A mnemonic: cherry blossoms cluster like strung beads - round red fruit hung in pairs visually echoes the phonetic.