每

měi
pronoun HSK 2 #348

Meanings

  1. 1 each; every

Examples

HSK 2
Wǒ měitiān dōu pǎobù.
I run every day.
HSK 3
Tā měicì lái dōu dài lǐwù.
She brings a gift every time she comes.
HSK 4
Měigè rén dōu yǒu zìjǐ de xiǎngfǎ.
Everyone has their own ideas.

Tips

grammar
每 is often paired with 都: 每...都... means 'every...all...'. For example: 每个学生都来了 (Every student came).
mistakes
每 needs a measure word before the noun (except time words): 每个人 (every person), 每本书 (every book), but 每天 (every day) needs no measure word.

Components

radical
母 mǔ
mother
Bottom 5 strokes - the indexing mother radical (Kangxi #80), depicting a kneeling woman with two dots for breasts. Carries 每's original meaning of 'lush, abundant' (a fertile mother figure), from which it shifted to 'every / each' as a sense of comprehensive plurality. Same radical in 毒, 毓.
semantic
丿 piě
head-cloth; hairpin (graphic residue)
Top 2 strokes - graphic remnant of an ancient hairpin or kerchief crowning a kneeling woman. The hint marks this slot unknown because the original picture was a woman with a decorative hairpin (an Ext-A variant); modern pedagogy treats these strokes simply as the headpiece sitting above 母 below. Sets the scene of a fully-adorned mother figure.

Stroke Order

每 měi