wěi
adjective #9,766

Meanings

  1. 1 great; mighty
  2. 2 grand; magnificent

Examples

Tā shì yīgè wěidà de rén.
He is a great person.
Chángchéng shì wěidà de jiànzhù.
The Great Wall is a magnificent structure.

Tips

usage
is mainly seen in 伟大 (great/mighty) and in personal names. It was one of the most popular characters in Chinese male names for decades. Also used in 宏伟 (grand/magnificent).

Components

radical
rén
person (left-side radical form of 人)
Left person radical — the side-form of , a walking figure compressed into two strokes. The indexing radical, marking as a quality describing a person: great, mighty, magnificent. Same radical groups with (benevolent), (trustworthy), (robust), (excellent) — almost all human-trait adjectives sit here.
phonetic
wěi
tanned leather (simplified from 韋, here phonetic)
Right supplies the sound directly — wěi matches the whole reading. Simplified from , which depicted feet circling a city (originally 'to encircle', source of ). Same phonetic feeds (surround), (defy), (reed), (latitude) — all in the wéi/wěi family. Purely sound-bearing in .

Stroke Order

wěi