嚏 (tì) · sneeze

Meanings

1 sneeze

Characters

嚏

tì

sneeze

Examples

HSK 6

他打了一个大喷嚏。

Tā dǎ le yí ge dà pēntì.

He let out a huge sneeze.

HSK 6

我老是想打嚏喷。

Wǒ lǎoshì xiǎng dǎ tìpen.

I keep wanting to sneeze.

Tips

usage

嚏 almost never appears alone in modern Chinese - it lives inside the compounds 喷嚏 (pēntì) and 嚏喷 (tìpen), both meaning 'sneeze'. The verb is 打喷嚏 'to sneeze'.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left mouth radical - a small square depicting an open mouth, the indexing radical for sounds and actions coming out of the face. In 嚏 it tells you immediately that this is something the mouth and nose do together. Same family: 喷 to spurt, 吹 to blow, 吐 to spit.

phonetic

疐 zhì

to stumble; obstruct (phonetic)

Right 疐 supplies the sound - zhì drifting to tì through historical onset shift. It is itself an archaic, almost unused character meaning 'to stumble or be blocked,' which fits the sneeze image perfectly: a sudden uncontrolled spasm that interrupts speech. The 喷嚏 compound is the common form.