Chinese character 须

“Must,” “need,” “wait,” “stay,” or “beard,” depending on the word.

Chinese words containing 须 can express “must” or “need,” but also a time span or facial hair. If someone sends 须 alone, ask for the surrounding phrase before reading it as an instruction; the bare character does not settle which sense they intend.

Why does 须 also mean beard?

Simplified 须 combines two traditional spellings.

Traditional writing generally uses 須 for necessity and related senses, and 鬚 for beard. Simplified writing uses 须 for both, so the surrounding word has to show which branch a writer means.

An early Chinese dictionary explains 須 as facial hair by interpreting 頁 as “head” and 彡 as “hair.” Ancient forms of this ancestor appear in oracle-bone inscriptions (writing carved on bone and shells), bronze inscriptions, Warring States-era writing (from a time of competing Chinese states), and seal script, an older formal style. These are forms of 須, not of the later simplified spelling 须. The character was later used for “need” or “require”; historical dictionaries also record “wait” and “stay,” and connect the necessity sense to 需 through borrowing.