Word.ws English Dictionary

wu

/ˈwuː//ˌdʌb.əl.juːˈjuː/

wu noun: a Chinese shaman.

Noun

wu (plural wus or wu)

  1. (historical) A Chinese shaman.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. (historical) A county of imperial and Republican China around Suzhou.
    Synonyms:
    Wuxian, Wuhsien, Wu-hsien
  2. (historical) A commandery of imperial China around Suzhou.
    Synonyms:
    Wujun, Wu-chun
  3. The family of Chinese languages spoken in that region, including Shanghainese and Suzhounese, the second-most spoken family after Mandarin.
    • Linguists say the Wu dialect widely spoken in Shanghai, to take one prominent example, shares only about 31 percent lexical similarity with Mandarin, or roughly the same as English and French.
    • The encounter at the Datian market began when the dumpling seller approached the foreigner with a phrase that sounded like "goodbye" in the Wu dialect. Knowing it must mean something else, the foreigner guessed she was asking his name, and provided it, producing a laugh from the woman who...2005 July 10, Howard W. French, “Uniting China to Speak Mandarin, the One Official Language: Easier Said Than Done”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 May 2017...
  4. (historical) The kingdom ruled by the Ji family from Wuxi and then Suzhou during the Spring and Autumn period of China's Zhou dynasty.
    • The finest private gardens were built in Suzhou, a graceful old city with a network of canals and a cultured ambiance. It was founded in the sixth century B.C. as the capital of the kingdom of Wu and flourished as a center of trade and scholarship under successive dynasties.1984 June 3, Christopher S. Wren, “WHERE THE CHINESE GARDEN BLOOMS”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 May 2015, Travel
    Synonyms:
    Gou Wu, Gouwu, Gong Wu, Gongwu
  5. A common surname from Chinese
  6. (historical) The kingdom ruled by the Sun family from Ezhou and Nanjing during the Three Kingdoms interregnum following China's Han dynasty.
    • I deeply regretted having to miss seeing Hsing-ping, a very old town built by the ruler of the Wu Kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period of the third century.1977, Yee Chiang, “Kuei-lin and Yang-shuo”, in China Revisited, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 155
    Synonyms:
    Dong Wu, Dongwu, Eastern Wu, Sun Wu
  7. (historical) The kingdom ruled by Li Zitong from Yangzhou and Hangzhou during the interregnum following China's Sui dynasty.
  8. (historical) The kingdom ruled by the Yang family from Yangzhou during the Ten Kingdoms interregnum following China's Tang dynasty.
    Synonyms:
    Huainan, Hongnong, Southern Wu, Yang Wu
  9. (historical) The kingdom ruled by the Qian family from Hangzhou and Shaoxing during the Ten Kingdoms interregnum following China's Tang dynasty.
    Synonyms:
    Wuyue

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. A surname from Chinese.
  2. (historical) An epithet of numerous kings and emperors in Chinese history who were honored with variants of the posthumous name Wuwang or Wudi.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. A river in Guizhou, China, a tributary of the Yangtze.
  2. A surname from Chinese.

Proper noun (4) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. A river in Hunan, China, a tributary of the Yuan.
  2. A surname from Chinese.

Proper noun (5) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. A river in Hunan, China, a tributary of the Yuan.

Proper noun (6) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. A surname from Chinese.

Proper noun (7) capitalized: Wu

Wu

  1. A surname from Chinese.

Proper noun (8) capitalized: WU

WU

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Weather Underground.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Windows Update.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Washburn University.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Washington University.
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Waynesburg University.
  6. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Webster University.
  7. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Willamette University.
  8. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Winthrop University.
  9. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of World University.

wu meaning in Hindi, Tamil and Marathi

wu in Hindi

वू, वु

wu in Tamil

வு

wu in Marathi

वू, वु

Examples of wu in a sentence

  • She wus walking home when it happened.
  • T' elters kno'd dis day wus comin' — we'ins got contingincy plans whin it do happun.
  • Wu was later immortalized as the Great Emperor Pao Sheng 保生大帝.

All 18 example sentences with wu

Synonyms of wu

20 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of wu

pluralwus
pluralwu

Plural of wu: wus or wu

Origin of wu

From the Wade-Giles romanization of Mandarin Chinese 巫 (wū, “shaman”).

Romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 吳 /吴 (Wú). Doublet of O.

Romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 武 (Wǔ, “war, warrior, warlike”).

Phrases with wu

Questions about wu

What does wu mean?
Wu means a Chinese shaman.
What is wu in Hindi?
Wu in Hindi is वू, वु. See Wu meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is wu?
Wu can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce wu?
Wu is pronounced /ˈwuː/.
What is the plural of wu?
The plural of wu is wus.

Words near wu in the dictionary

  1. WTT
  2. WTTBP
  3. WTUL
  4. wtv
  5. wtvr
  6. wu
  7. Wu Flu
  8. wu gok
  9. Wu Han
  10. wu kok
  11. wu wei

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wu (page history and authors); Wu (page history and authors); WU (page history and authors); wu (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); wu (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); wu (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Wu.wav.

Cite this entry: “wu.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wu. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.