jīng
noun #33,064

Meanings

  1. 1 eyeball; eye

Examples

Tā de yǎnjīng hěn piàoliang.
Her eyes are very beautiful.
Tā zhēng dà le yǎnjīng.
He opened his eyes wide.

Tips

usage
is almost exclusively used in 眼睛 (yǎnjīng, eye). Also appears in 目不转睛 (mùbùzhuǎnjīng, to stare without blinking) and 画龙点睛 (huàlóngdiǎnjīng, to add the finishing touch).

Components

radical
eye
Left eye radical — pictograph of an eye, pupil and lid lines stacked vertically. specifically names the eyeball or pupil, the focused dark centre of vision. Always pairs with to make 眼睛, the everyday word for 'eyes' in modern Chinese.
phonetic
qīng
blue-green; clear (phonetic)
Right supplies the sound — qīng drifting to jīng via the q/j palatalisation, with the rest of the syllable kept. means the clear blue-green of fresh growth. As phonetic in an eye-character it gives a faint semantic echo: the clear, bright iris — 火眼金睛.

Stroke Order

jīng