What does 月 mean in Chinese?

月 (yuè) means "month" in Chinese. The new HSK exam expects you to recognise it at HSK 1.

How do you write 月?

月 is written with 4 strokes, starting from the 月 (meat) radical and following standard Chinese stroke order (top to bottom, left to right). See the interactive stroke-order tool for the full animation.

What is the radical of 月?

The radical of 月 is 月 (meat, Kangxi radical #130). Other common HSK characters using the same radical include 服, 能, 期, 有.

How many strokes does 月 have?

The Chinese character 月 has 4 strokes.

What HSK level is 月?

On the new HSK exam syllabus, 月 is a character to recognise at HSK 1 and to write by hand at HSK 2 (the handwriting list HSK 1 and 2 share).

月 (yuè): Meaning, Stroke Order, Radical & Examples

月

yuè

month

HSK 1 character 4 strokes Radical: 月 (meat)

Quick Answer

月 (yuè) means "month" with 4 strokes, radical 月 (meat), HSK 1 on the new exam.

Full dictionary entry for 月 →Animated stroke-order for 月 →

Pronunciation

yuè

Meaning

Primary: month

Etymology

Oracle-bone origin

Oracle-bone forms of 月 show a crescent moon, usually drawn with a single curved outline and a short inner stroke. The crescent rather than a full disc was chosen specifically to distinguish it from 日 (sun), which was drawn as a circle with a dot. The same graph in very early contexts could also be read as 夕 (evening), and the two characters were only fully separated later.

Form evolution

The oracle-bone crescent was preserved in bronze inscriptions with only minor regularisation. Seal script straightened the outer curve and lengthened the inner strokes into two horizontals. Clerical script turned the whole shape into a rectangular frame with two inner strokes, and 楷书 finalised the four-stroke form used today. Crucially, the flesh radical 肉 was also reduced to look like 月 in clerical script, which is why many 月-containing characters (肝, 脸, 胖) have nothing to do with the moon.

How the meaning evolved

The core meaning 'moon' has been constant from the Shang dynasty onward. Because the lunar cycle defined the traditional calendar, 月 extended very early to mean 'month', a sense equally current today. Poetic and emotional associations; homesickness, romance, the passage of time; accumulated through classical literature but did not displace the literal meanings.

Cultural note

The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) centres on the full moon and the idiom 花好月圆 ('flowers in bloom, moon full'), a standard blessing for weddings. Learners should memorise that 月 inside a character usually means 'flesh/body' (from the merged 肉 radical), not 'moon'; 朋 (friend, originally two strings of shells) is one of the few exceptions where the 月 is genuinely non-lunar and non-fleshy.