adjective #10,812

Meanings

  1. 1 intimate
  2. 2 close
  3. 3 familiar

Examples

Nǐ de nìchēng shì shénme?
What's your nickname?
Tāmen liǎ shuōhuà hěn qīnnì.
The two of them speak very intimately.

Tips

usage
rarely stands alone. Common compounds: 昵称 (nìchēng, nickname), 亲昵 (qīnnì, intimate/affectionate). The traditional form also exists but is standard in simplified Chinese.

Components

radical
sun; day
Sun radical on the left, the indexing radical. The choice is etymological rather than literal — 'intimate' grew from the idea of being 'close enough to share daylight every day'. It files with bright, time, evening in the sun-and-time family.
phonetic
Buddhist nun (here phonetic)
Right side supplies the sound — ní shifted to nì in the modern reading. The 'nun' meaning is dormant; treat as a pure phonetic. The same series gives girl and particle, all sharing the ní/nì sound rather than the nun image.

Stroke Order