wèi
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 hedgehog

Examples

Cìwei yùdào wēixiǎn jiù suōchéng yì tuán.
When a hedgehog meets danger it curls into a ball.
Jiàn chā de xiàng wèi máo yíyàng mì.
Arrows stuck out as thick as a hedgehog's spines.

Tips

usage
almost always appears in 刺猬 (hedgehog), literally 'thorn hedgehog'. The image of dense spines also drives expressions about things bristling or crowding together.

Components

radical
quǎn
dog; animal radical
The side-form of the dog radical, marking the character as an animal. It groups the hedgehog with the many beast names that take this radical.
phonetic
wèi
stomach
Provides the sound, read on its own and unchanged here. It is purely phonetic and adds no meaning to the animal.

Stroke Order

wèi