戏

戲
xì
noun HSK 5 #1,444

Meanings

  1. 1 drama; play; game
  2. 2 to play; to joke

Examples

HSK 3
Yéye tèbié ài tīng xì.
Grandpa loves listening to Chinese opera.
HSK 4
Zhèbù xì hěn hǎokàn.
This play/drama is great.
HSK 4
Nǐ bié zài xìnòng tā le.
Stop teasing him.

Tips

usage
戏 is used in: 游戏 (game), 戏剧 (drama / theater), 京戏/京剧 (Peking opera), 看戏 (to watch a show), 马戏 (circus). In gaming, 游戏 is the standard word for video games in Chinese.

Components

radical
戈 gē
dagger-axe
戈 on the right - the indexing radical, picturing a hooked dagger-axe with a horizontal blade. Originally 戲 referred to a theatrical mock-battle with weapons, hence the spear. Modern 戏 covers theater, opera, drama and play (戏剧, 京戏, 游戏) - all still descended from that armed performance.
semantic
又 yòu
again; right hand
又 on the left - pictures a right hand and is used as the simplified swap-in for the much busier 虚 in traditional 戲. It carries no real semantic weight here beyond marking the hand that wields the spear; learn it as a stroke-economy reform symbol. Same simplification trick gives 鸡 (trad 雞), 仅, 戏.

Stroke Order

戏 xì