正 (zhèng): straight; upright

Meanings

1 straight; upright
2 correct; right; proper
3 main; principal
4 to correct; to rectify
5 exactly; just (at that time); right (in that place)
6 positive (math)

Characters

Top horizontal line + 止 (foot) — a foot moving straight toward the marked line, hence 'going correctly, on the right path'.

Examples

你说得很正。

Nǐ shuō de hěn zhèng.

Your pronunciation is very accurate.

正门在那边。

Zhèngmén zài nàbiān.

The main gate is over there.

我正要给你打电话。

Wǒ zhèng yào gěi nǐ dǎ diànhuà.

I'm just about to call you.

Tips

usage

Three senses to keep straight: as an adjective it means 'straight / upright / proper' (正确, 正直); as an adverb 'just / right now / exactly' (正在, 正好); as a verb 'to correct' (纠正, 改正). Context picks the sense — same character, no tone change.

register

Almost always read zhèng. The single exception is 正月 (first lunar month, and the derived 正月十五 for Lantern Festival), where it shifts to first-tone zhēng. Tradition says this avoidance dates to the Qin emperor Ying Zheng (嬴政) — the calendar month was renamed to dodge his name's reading. Outside the lunar-calendar context, zhēng never appears.

Components

radical

止 zhǐ

foot; stop

Bottom 止 depicts a foot/footprint and is the indexing radical. The foot moves straight toward the line above — 'going correctly, on the right path' — yielding 'correct, just, exactly, upright'. Family: 步 (step), 此 (here), 武 (military) — all foot-built.

ideograph

一 yī

one; horizontal line

Top horizontal functions as an abstract goal-line marker above the foot below — the destination the action aims at. Oracle-bone forms showed a foot marching toward a walled town or boundary; the line is what remains of that target.