On the oracle bones, 兔 drew a rabbit exactly as you might spot one frozen in a field: two long ears laid back, a round crouching body, and a short stroke for its stubby, upturned tail — the detail that told a scribe's rabbit apart from a long-tailed rat. That same crouch, ears back and body pulled low, is still the shape a rabbit freezes into the moment it senses you looking.
A piece of culture
The Jade Rabbit on the Moon Look up at a full moon and Chinese storytellers see 玉兔, the Jade Rabbit — companion to the moon goddess Chang'e, endlessly pounding herbs into an elixir of immortality beneath a cassia tree. The legend is old enough to appear in Han-dynasty writing, and it is still retold every Mid-Autumn Festival over mooncakes and moon-gazing. It even made it to the real moon: China's first two lunar rovers, launched in 2013 and 2018, were both named 玉兔 — Yutu — after the storybook rabbit they were sent to visit.
Use it in a real word
白兔
báitù · baak6 tou3
white rabbit — the animal at the heart of the Chang'e moon legend; you already know 白