美 (měi): beautiful; pretty

Meanings

1 beautiful; pretty
2 America
3 good; satisfying

Characters

美

měi

beautiful; good; fine

Composed of 羊 (sheep) + 大 (big) — a big, fat sheep was considered beautiful in ancient times.

Examples

这里的风景真美！

Zhèlǐ de fēngjǐng zhēn měi!

The scenery here is truly beautiful!

她长得很美。

Tā zhǎng de hěn měi.

She is very beautiful.

心里美滋滋的。

Xīnli měizīzī de.

Feeling satisfied and happy inside.

Tips

usage

美 as abbreviation for America: 美国 (USA), 美元 (US dollar), 中美关系 (China-US relations).

culture

The character 美 is composed of 羊 (sheep) + 大 (big) — in ancient China, a big, fat sheep was considered a beautiful, desirable thing.

Components

radical

羊 yáng

sheep; goat (radical)

Top sheep radical (Kangxi #123) — here in its 6-stroke headless-tail form (standalone 羊's bottom vertical is absorbed into 美's body below). Pictograph of a horned sheep viewed head-on: the two top dots are horns, the horizontals are body. Carries the meaning directly — fat sheep = beautiful in ancient agrarian culture. Family: 群, 鲜, 羞, 善.

semantic

大 dà

big (semantic)

Bottom 大 — a person with arms outstretched, here pictured wearing the sheep above as a headdress. The compound ideograph reads: a person crowned with sheep-horns = decorated, ornamented, beautiful. From this dance/ritual scene came the modern 'beautiful, pretty, good' senses, plus the rebus use 美国 'America' (a sound-and-flavour borrow).