Sinograph Addenda · Signs

欲want · yù · to want, desire

want

Where it comes from

On the right, a figure with mouth gaping open — the yawning, gaping element that marks words of breath and appetite. On the left, the valley, there for its sound (and, the moralists liked to add, as deep and hard to fill as desire itself). Taught in the can-get-want chapter.

How to remember it

At the right a figure gapes wide; at the left a valley lends its sound — and its size: an appetite deep as a canyon, never filled. Want.

In the wild