妮 (nī) · girl, used in transliteration of foreign names

Meanings

1 girl
2 used in transliteration of foreign names

Characters

妮

nī

girl

Examples

HSK 3

小妮子，你去哪儿？

Xiǎo nīzi, nǐ qùnǎr?

Hey girl, where are you going?

HSK 6

安妮是个很受欢迎的英文名。

Ānnī shì gè hěn shòu huānyíng de yīngwén míng.

Annie is a very popular English name.

Tips

usage

妮 on its own means 'girl' in some dialects. It is very commonly used in Chinese transliterations of foreign names containing 'ni' or 'ne' sounds, like 安妮 (Annie), 妮可 (Nicole).

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman

Woman radical on the left - the indexing radical, three crossed strokes picturing a kneeling figure with arms folded forward. Supplies meaning: 妮 means 'girl, lass, young miss' - the affectionate diminutive 妮子 is widely used in northern dialects. Same radical anchors a huge family of female-related words: 妈, 姐, 妹, 娃.

phonetic

尼 ní

Buddhist nun

尼 (ní) on the right supplies the sound exactly, with a slight tone-shift to nī in 妮. Same phonetic stem also feeds 泥 (mud) and 你 (you, nǐ). 尼 itself depicts a person resting against another and is widely used today in transliterations like 尼日利亚 (Nigeria); here it is purely sonic.