初 — Chinese character
初
chū
beginning, initial, primary
- Pinyin
- chū
- Radical
- 18 ⼑ (Knife)
- Strokes
- 8
- Components
- 衤 刀
- Formation
- ideographic — Cutting 刀 the cloth 衤 is the first step in making clothes
- Japanese
- 初 as a kanji
Common words with 初
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 当初 (當初) | dāng chū | at that time; originally |
| 初期 | chū qī | initial stage; beginning period |
| 最初 | zuì chū | first; primary |
| 年初 | nián chū | beginning of the year |
| 初步 | chū bù | initial; preliminary |
| 初中 | chū zhōng | junior high school (abbr. for 初级中学 (chū jí zhōng xué)) |
| 初级 (初級) | chū jí | junior; primary |
| 起初 | qǐ chū | originally; at first; at the outset |
| 月初 | yuè chū | start of month; early in the month |
| 初次 | chū cì | for the first time; first (meeting, attempt etc) |
| 初始 | chū shǐ | initial; starting (point) |
| 初恋 (初戀) | chū liàn | first love |
English words written with 初
初 in the Chinese classics
Occurrences: I Ching 5 · Mencius 2 · Zhuangzi 7
- Hexagram 4
- Hexagram 36
- Hexagram 38
- Hexagram 57
- Hexagram 63
- Mencius 6B.7
- Mencius 7B.37
- Zhuangzi The Universe
Data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.