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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

HSK 4
请仔细检查你的作业。
Qǐng zǐxì jiǎnchá nǐ de zuòyè.
Please check your homework carefully.
HSK 4
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