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仔

zǐ / zǎi
adjective #3,238

Meanings

  1. 1 fine; detailed; careful (bound form in 仔细)
  2. 2 young (of livestock or poultry; bound form)

Examples

请仔细检查你的作业。
Qǐng zǐxì jiǎnchá nǐ de zuòyè.
Please check your homework carefully.
她仔仔细细地读了三遍。
Tā zǐzǐxìxì de dú le sān biàn.
She read it through three times, very meticulously.

Tips

usage
The zǐ reading is now restricted to a small set of bound uses. The everyday one is 仔细 careful — by far the most common encounter. The reduplicated 仔仔细细 amplifies it to 'meticulously'. A classical use survives in 仔肩 'to bear responsibility' (toneless first syllable, rarely seen outside literary or formal writing).
mistakes
If you see 仔 in everyday compounds about young animals, Cantonese-style dishes, or 'lad / guy / henchman' contexts, it's zǎi (see the zǎi entry). Read zǐ only in 仔细 and its reduplicated form, plus the rare classical 仔肩.

Components

radical
亻 rén
person (radical form of 人)
Left-side person radical — the indexing radical, side-form of 人. Files 仔 in the human-related family (offspring, young animals, careful manner). Pairs with right-side 子 to make a doubled 'human + child' compound: a young one, a kid, a small thing carefully attended to.
phonetic
子 zǐ
child; small thing
Right-side 子 supplies the sound, with zǐ shifting to zǎi for the Cantonese-influenced 'kid / young animal' reading; the more standard zǐ reading is preserved in 仔细 (careful). 子 also doubles as semantic: a child added to a person = a young one. Phonetic family: 字 (character).

Stroke Order

仔 zǐ