嘴

zuǐ
noun HSK 3 #403

Measure Word

一张嘴 zhāng

Meanings

  1. 1 mouth

Characters

Contains 口 (mouth) - the primary meaning is mouth.

Examples

HSK 1
Tā zuǐ hěn xiǎo.
Her mouth is very small.
HSK 1
Tā zuǐ lǐ hái zài chī dōngxi.
He still has food in his mouth.
HSK 3
Qǐng zhāngkāi zuǐ.
Please open your mouth.

Tips

usage
嘴 can also mean 'beak' for birds. The full form 嘴巴 is also common in spoken Chinese.
memory
The character 嘴 has 口 (mouth radical) on the left, reinforcing its meaning.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Left mouth radical - the indexing component, doubling down on the meaning. 嘴 originally referred to a beak; adding 口 turned it explicitly into the human or animal mouth. Same family as 吃 (eat), 唱 (sing), 咬 (bite).
phonetic
觜 zī
beak; horns
Right 觜 supplies both sound and meaning - it originally pictured horns or a bird's beak, and reads zuǐ in this position. The full 嘴 = mouth-radical clarifying a once-ambiguous beak/horn graph as the everyday word for mouth.

Stroke Order

嘴 zuǐ