noun #8,342

Meanings

  1. 1 knee

Characters

Examples

HSK 4
Tā de xīgài shòushāng le.
His knee was injured.
HSK 4
Shuǐ dào le tā de xīgài yǐshàng.
The water was above his knees.
HSK 6
Tā guì zài dìshang, xīgài hěn téng.
She knelt on the ground and her knees hurt.

Tips

usage
is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. The common word for knee is 膝盖. appears in literary or compound words: 促膝谈心 (to have a heart-to-heart talk, literally 'touching knees and talking').
memory
The radical (flesh/body) on the left marks it as a body part. The right side gives the approximate sound xī.

Components

radical
ròu
flesh; meat (radical form)
Left-side flesh radical - the side form of , visually identical to moon but historically distinct. It tags as a body part, the standard prefix for anatomy chars alongside foot, leg, arm, shoulder. The radical-variant entry makes the meat-vs-moon distinction explicit when learners tap through.
phonetic
lacquer tree
Right side supplies the sound - qī drifting to xī through a regular palatalization shift. is an older form of lacquer, depicting sap dripping from a cut tree. The connection to knees is purely phonetic; meaning rides on the flesh radical alone.

Stroke Order