似 (shì): bound form used only in 似的 — 'l…

Meanings

1 bound form used only in 似的 — 'like; as if; similar to'

Characters

似

shì

bound form used only in 似的 — 'like; as if; similar to'

Examples

他笑得像傻子似的。

Tā xiào de xiàng shǎzi shìde.

He's grinning like an idiot.

那孩子吃得像饿了三天似的。

Nà háizi chī de xiàng è le sān tiān shìde.

The kid ate as if he'd been starving for three days.

Tips

usage

The shì reading is a bound form — it ONLY appears inside the fixed particle 似的 (sometimes written 是的 in older texts). The structure is typically 像/好像 + NP + 似的 — 'like a / as if a NP'. Roughly equivalent to English 'as if' or '...-like'.

mistakes

Don't read 似的 as 似的 — even though every other use of 似 is sì, this single particle is shì. The Taiwan pronunciation is 似的, but in Mainland standard it's shì. A second pitfall: the structure ALWAYS needs the de particle attached; 似 on its own never means 'like'.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person

Same person radical as in the sì reading. In the shì form the radical fades into the background — the character is now a grammatical particle marker rather than a content word.

phonetic

以 yǐ

to use; with (here phonetic)

Same 以 phonetic. The shì reading appears to be a frozen colloquial-to-particle drift that locked in fourth tone alongside the de suffix. Outside 似的 the reading never occurs.