fěi / fēi
adjective #3,988

Meanings

  1. 1 meager; humble; thin
  2. 2 unworthy; slight

Examples

Zhè fèn gōngzuò de xīnshuǐ bùfěi.
The salary this job offers is far from small.
Bié wàngzìfěibó, nǐ bǐ xiǎngxiàng zhōng gèng yǒunénglì.
Don't belittle yourself; you are more capable than you think.

Tips

usage
The fěi reading means 'meager, humble'. It lives in a few set words: 菲薄 (meager; to belittle), 妄自菲薄 (to undervalue oneself), and 不菲 (considerable, literally 'not meager', often of a price). The everyday fēi reading is unrelated.

Components

radical
cǎo
grass; plants (top form of 艸)
Top grass radical. For the fěi reading the plant origin shows through: once named a humble wild radish, and from 'common scrappy plant' came the figurative 'meager, slight', as in 菲薄.
phonetic
fēi
not; wrong (phonetic)
Bottom gives the sound; the fěi reading is the same syllable with a different tone. It is purely phonetic, contributing no meaning to the 'meager' sense.

Stroke Order

fěi