How to Write 㼌 (yǔ) — Meaning “weak; feeble”

Imagine a melon (瓜) that is so weak it needs to be given (予) extra support to stay upright. This mental picture ties the visual parts to the meaning of weakness.

First write the left radical 瓜 with 5 strokes: left-falling, left-falling, vertical-raise, dot, right-falling. Then add the right part 予 with 4 strokes: horizontal-falling hook, vertical-hook, horizontal, vertical-hook. A common mistake is making the right side too wide or confusing the hooks in 予 with those in 矛.

The character 瓞 means 'small melon' specifically and uses 失 on the right, while 瓠 means 'bottle gourd' and uses 夸. In contrast, 㼌 means 'weak' or 'feeble' and is not tied to a specific melon type; its right part is 予, which makes it visually distinct.

This character is very rare today and appears mostly in classical literature or reduplicated as 㼌㼌 to describe something weakly or feebly. It is not part of the HSK vocabulary, so you will almost never need to use it in daily conversation, but it may be encountered in old agricultural or poetic texts.

Common words containing 㼌 include: 㼌㼌 (yǔ yǔ) — weakly; feebly; 瓜㼌 (guā yǔ) — small melons; 㼌儿 (yǔ ér) — weak little one.