杏 (xìng): apricot

Meanings

1 apricot
2 almond (bound form)

Characters

杏

xìng

apricot

Examples

这棵杏树每年春天都会开花。

Zhè kē xìngshù měinián chūntiān dōuhuì kāihuā.

This apricot tree blooms every spring.

我买了一袋杏干当零食。

Wǒ mǎi le yī dài xìng gān dāng língshí.

I bought a bag of dried apricots as a snack.

Tips

usage

杏 on its own means apricot. For almond, use 杏仁 (xìngrén). 杏 also appears in 银杏 (yínxìng, ginkgo).

culture

杏林 (xìnglín, apricot grove) is a classical metaphor for the medical profession, from a legend about the physician Dong Feng who asked patients to plant apricot trees instead of paying him.

Components

radical

木 mù

wood; tree

Top 木 — pictograph of a tree with branches above and roots below. As the indexing radical it places 杏 in the tree-and-fruit family with 桃 peach, 梅 plum, 李 plum, 桔 tangerine, 枣 jujube. The position is unusual — most 木-radical chars have it on the left.

semantic

口 kǒu

mouth

Bottom 口 — pictograph of an open mouth. Sits below the tree, suggesting a fruit being eaten or the round mouth-shape of the apricot itself. The combined image reads as 'a fruit from the tree that goes into the mouth' — a memorable visual mnemonic for this small orange-pit fruit.