若
若 (ruò) — like, as if; (classical) you. Plant 艹 + 右: originally 'you', later grammatical 'like'. Classical life: 般若 (bōrě) — prajñā, transcendent wisdom (Buddhist). Grammar: bound (grammatical particle) — also: to seem; like; as; if
Closest English meanings
like·as if·if·seem·supposing
The Calligrapher — Xuē Shàopéng 薛绍彭
Northern Song calligrapher paired with Mi Fu as 'Mi-Xue'; a pure Jin-style (Wang) classicist.
Song calligrapher (生卒年不详（北宋）), master of running script/cursive script — known for 《杂书卷》. Song dynasty
Cultural Story
Zhuangzi and the prose masters leaned on it for supposition, and Ouyang Xiu opens the Pavilion of the Drunken Old Man with if only the sun rises and the woods' mists disperse, building whole landscapes out of a single conditional. Dreamers and insomniacs borrowed it for the trance of the unreal, feeling as if in a dream.
Energy Reading
Wood (木)
Comparative symbology, not fortune-telling.
Common words & phrases
- 倘若 if · supposing · in case · provided
- 若干 some · certain · several · a number of
- 若是 if · in case · provided that
- 恍若 as if · like · seemingly
- 如若 if · in case · supposing
- 莫若 better than · nothing like · rather than
Read the story behind the character
A weather app message says if it rains the match moves indoors, a contract lists a number of items in an appendix, a grandmother dozing on the train feels as if she were back in her childhood kitchen, a text thread debates what to do if the flight is cancelled, and a novelist drafts chapter titles as if-this-then-that.
Own this character
Purchase delivers the original SVG of this glyph, brushed by Xuē Shàopéng 薛绍彭, ready to place on skin, paper, or screen.