邀

• Pinyin: yāo
• Hanzi breakdown: 邀 = 辶 (walking/movement — going out to call someone) + 敫 (to summon/radiate — a phonetic-semantic component suggesting reaching out to draw someone in)

Meaning

To invite; to request someone's presence or participation; to solicit. A formal or literary verb for extending an invitation.

Used in formal, literary, or official contexts: 邀请 (to invite — the most common compound), 应邀 (at someone's invitation; in response to an invitation), 受邀 (to be invited), 邀约 (to invite; an invitation; also a business appointment), 特邀 (specially invited). More formal and intentional than 请 alone.

Examples

1. 剧院特邀了三位国际知名指挥家于本季乐团音乐会上亮相，此次邀约在古典音乐界引发了广泛的关注与期待。 The theater specially invited three internationally renowned conductors to appear in this season’s orchestra concerts, an invitation that sparked widespread attention and anticipation in the classical music world.
2. 他应邀出席了外国使馆举办的国庆招待会，在席间与多位外交官就当前国际局势进行了深入而坦诚的交流。 He attended a foreign embassy’s National Day reception by invitation, where he had in-depth and candid exchanges with multiple diplomats about the current international situation.
3. 主办方诚邀业界专家和学者踊跃投稿，欢迎围绕人工智能伦理与治理议题提交具有学术价值的研究论文。 The organizers sincerely invite industry experts and scholars to submit papers and welcome academically valuable research on AI ethics and governance.

Usage Guide

Context: diplomacy, academia, events, business

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 会议组委会诚邀相关领域的资深专家和学术带头人担任大会主旨发言嘉宾，并就前沿研究成果进行专题报告与交流。(The conference organising committee sincerely invites senior experts and academic leaders in relevant fields to serve as keynote speakers and to present thematic reports on cutting-edge research findings.)
• 他受邀前往哈佛大学发表学术演讲，这是他首次应邀赴境外顶尖学府分享其多年研究成果，意义非凡。(He was invited to deliver an academic lecture at Harvard University — this was the first time he had been invited abroad to a top institution to share his years of research findings, making it an exceptionally meaningful occasion.)

Don't Say

• 邀去吃饭 — 邀 alone is literary; in everyday speech, the natural expression is 邀请某人去吃饭 or simply 请某人去吃饭; bare 邀 without 请 sounds archaic in spoken Chinese

Origin & History

邀 = 辶 (movement/walk radical) + 敫 (to summon/radiate outward — originally a ritual gesture of calling, now the phonetic-semantic core of this character)

Cultural Context

Era: Classical/Modern

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal