verb #22,250

Meanings

  1. 1 to envy
  2. 2 to be jealous of
  3. 3 jealousy

Examples

Tā dùjì tóngshì de chénggōng.
She envied her colleague's success.
Jídù huì méngbì rén de shuāngyǎn.
Jealousy can blind a person's eyes.

Tips

usage
is a classical character rarely used alone in modern Mandarin. Most common in 嫉妒 (jídù) and 妒忌 (dùjì). Features the radical.
memory
= (woman) + (door/household) — jealousy shut inside the home. A vivid mnemonic for the character structure.

Components

radical
woman
Left-side woman radical, three strokes of a kneeling figure with folded hands. Anchors in the family of social-emotional words tied to the old gendered worldview — originally jealousy among co-wives in a polygamous household. The framing is historical, not endorsement. Same family: , , .
phonetic
door; household (here phonetic + semantic)
Right side supplies the sound — hù drifting to dù through a regular alternation in old readings. The single-leaf-door picture of also adds meaning: jealousy is the resentment of one household toward another, the suspicion between rival doors. Same dù phonetic family: specifically uses this irregular reading.

Stroke Order