咪 (mī): meow (onomatopoeia)

Meanings

1 meow (onomatopoeia)
2 cat (informal)
3 mi (music note)

Characters

咪

mī

meow, cat sound

Examples

HSK 2

她养了一只小咪咪。

Tā yǎng le yī zhī xiǎo mīmī.

She has a little kitty.

HSK 3

小猫咪在沙发上睡觉。

Xiǎo māomī zài shāfā shàng shuìjiào.

The little kitty is sleeping on the sofa.

Tips

usage

咪 is most commonly seen in 猫咪 (kitty/cat, affectionate) and 咪咪 (kitty). On its own it can represent the sound a cat makes or the musical note 'mi'.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left mouth radical - indexing radical for 咪. Marks 咪 as a sound-from-the-mouth character: meowing, the musical note 'mi,' a kitten's call. Same family-role as 哈, 嗯, 喵, 嘎 - onomatopoeia and vocalizations where 口 simply flags 'this is a sound coming out.'

phonetic

米 mǐ

rice; tiny grain

Right phonetic 米 - supplies the sound near-exactly (mǐ → mī, just a tone shift). Pictographically scattered grains of rice. Carries no semantic role here - purely phonetic. Pleasant mnemonic for learners: a small rice-grain-sized creature making rice-grain-sized 'mī mī' sounds → a kitty (猫咪).