给 (jǐ): to supply

Meanings

1 to supply
2 to provide
3 to furnish

Characters

给

jǐ

to supply

Examples

政府供给灾区粮食。

Zhèngfǔ gōngjǐ zāiqū liángshi.

The government supplies food to the disaster area.

战时物资实行配给。

Zhànshí wùzī shíxíng pèijǐ.

In wartime, supplies were rationed.

这个村庄基本自给自足。

Zhège cūnzhuāng jīběn zìjǐzìzú.

This village is basically self-sufficient.

Tips

register

Reading jǐ is bound — it never stands alone or appears in casual speech. You only meet it inside formal/technical compounds: 供给 (supply), 配给 (ration), 给养 (military provisions), 给予 (formal 'to grant'), 给水 (water supply, engineering), 自给自足 (self-sufficient). For 'to give' in everyday speech, switch to the gěi reading.

memory

Trick: if the compound feels like something on a government form or a military supply line, the 给 is jǐ. If you'd say it to a friend over coffee, it's gěi.

Components

radical

纟 sī

silk; thread

Silk radical (side-form of 糸) — three strokes for a hank of thread. The jǐ reading preserves the oldest sense of the character: issuing silk, cloth, and grain rations to soldiers and officials. From that 'supply / provision' meaning the colloquial gěi 'to give' later developed.

phonetic

合 hé

to combine (here phonetic)

Right-side 合 is the phonetic — Old Chinese 合 had a final stop that left traces in both the gěi and jǐ readings; the literary jǐ stayed closer to the original syllable shape. 合 also adds a faint semantic flavor of 'matching / fitting' — supplying just what is needed.