要 — Chinese character
要
yào
essential, necessary; to ask for; to coerce; to demand
- Pinyin
- yào
- Radical
- 146 ⾑ (West)
- Strokes
- 9
- Components
- 覀 女
- Formation
- ideographic — A woman 女 with hands on her waist 覀
- Japanese
- 要 as a kanji
Common words with 要
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 需要 | xū yào | to need; to want; to demand; to require; needs |
| 主要 | zhǔ yào | main; principal; major; primary |
| 重要 | zhòng yào | important; significant; major |
| 要求 | yāo qiú | to request; to require |
| 不要 | bù yào | don't!; must not |
| 只要 | zhǐ yào | so long as; provided; if |
| 想要 | xiǎng yào | to want to; to feel like |
| 必要 | bì yào | necessary; essential |
| 就要 | jiù yào | will; shall |
| 要是 | yào shi | (coll.) if |
| 要么 (要麼) | yào me | or; either one or the other |
| 要说 (要說) | yào shuō | as for; when it comes to |
English words written with 要
要 in the Chinese classics
Occurrences: Tao Te Ching 1 · Analects 2 · Art of War 2 · Mencius 8 · Zhuangzi 14
- Tao Te Ching Chapter 27
- Analects 14.13
- Analects 14.15
- Art of War 7.32
- Art of War 13.27
- Mencius 2A.6
- Mencius 2B.2
- Mencius 3B.5
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.