屎 (shǐ): excrement

Measure Word

一坨屎 tuó

Meanings

1 excrement
2 poop
3 crap

Characters

屎

shǐ

excrement; poop

Examples

小心，地上有狗屎。

Xiǎoxīn, dìshang yǒu gǒu shǐ.

Be careful, there's dog poop on the ground.

这个东西是什么屎？

Zhège dōngxi shì shénme shǐ?

What kind of crap is this?

他吓得屁滚尿流。

Tā xià de pì gǔn niào liú.

He was scared shitless.

Tips

usage

屎 is vulgar but common in daily speech. Used in many colorful expressions: 狗屎 (dog crap / nonsense), 放屁 is related but uses a different character. 屎 is also used figuratively to mean something terrible.

memory

The top part 尸 means 'corpse/body' and the bottom 米 means 'rice' — what comes out of the body after eating rice.

Components

radical

尸 shī

corpse; body

Top-left wrapping body radical (Kangxi #44) — depicts a seated or reclining body. Anchors a family of bodily-output characters where the body produces something underneath: 屎 (excrement), 尿 (urine), 屁 (fart) — the body radical above, the substance below. Pedagogically transparent, if earthy.

semantic

米 mǐ

rice; grain

Inner rice — depicts grains scattered around a central cross. Paired with the body-shape above, the picture reads as 'rice from the body' = digested grain = excrement. A blunt and very old pictographic compound (会意字). The whole char is indexed under Kangxi #44 尸 (shī, corpse) — the bent-body radical wrapping above.