How to Write 浯 (wú) — Meaning “Wu (often used in place names)”

Picture a stream of water (氵) flowing past a sign that says 'my' (吾) to create 'my stream'—this reminds you that 浯 appears in place names like 浯溪. The sound wú is the same as 吾, so just think of water plus 'wú'.

The left radical 氵 must be written first as three compact strokes (dot, dot, lift), then the right side 吾 with seven strokes. A common mistake is making the 氵 too wide or misaligning the horizontal strokes in 吾—keep the left side narrow and the right side balanced so the character looks stable.

浯 has 吾 (wú) on the right, while 沫 (mò, meaning 'foam') has 末 (mò, 'tip') and 沭 (shù, a river name) has 术 (shù, 'art'). Visually, 吾 has more horizontal strokes at the top than 末, and 术 lacks the extra horizontal line found in 吾. In meaning, only 浯 is used for place names like 浯溪.

浯 is a rare character found mostly in geographic names such as 浯溪 (a stream in Hunan), 浯屿 (an island), and 浯水 (a river). It is not part of the HSK vocabulary, but the 浯溪 area is culturally famous for its ancient calligraphy carvings (浯溪碑林). You will almost never see it outside of these specific place names.

Common words containing 浯 include: 浯溪 (wú xī) — Wuxi (a stream name); 浯屿 (wú yǔ) — Wuyu (an island); 浯水 (wú shuǐ) — Wushui (a river name).