亏

虧
kuī
verb HSK 5 #10,404

Meanings

  1. 1 to lose (money)
  2. 2 to be deficient
  3. 3 luckily; fortunately (ironic)

Examples

HSK 2
Kuī nǐ háishì wǒ péngyou ne!
And you call yourself my friend! (sarcastic)
HSK 6
Zhècì tóuzī kuī le bùshǎo qián.
This investment lost quite a bit of money.
HSK 6
Gōngsī jīnnián kuīsǔn yánzhòng.
The company had serious losses this year.

Tips

usage
亏 at the start of a sentence is sarcastic/ironic: 亏你还说呢! (How dare you even say that!). It implies the listener should know better.
grammar
吃亏 (chī kuī) means 'to suffer a loss/disadvantage.' It's one of the most common collocations with 亏.

Components

radical
二 èr
two; pair of lines
Simplified from 虧. The top horizontal plus the upper bar of 亏 form the 二 pattern that serves as the indexing Kangxi radical. After simplification stripped the complex 虍-and-雐 components, only this 二-frame survives as the lookup anchor.
ideograph
亏 kuī
deficit; loss; lacking
Trailing curved hook below the 二 frame functions as a residual positional marker completing the modern 亏 silhouette. No independent reading. Historically the traditional 虧 pictured breath blowing through a tiger-mask emblem to suggest exhalation and loss; the reformed three-stroke shape preserves only this curl.

Stroke Order

亏 kuī