noun #24,068

Meanings

  1. 1 lizard (bound form, used in compounds)

Examples

Xīyì shì yī zhǒng chángjiàn de páxíng dòngwù.
Lizards are a common type of reptile.
Zhè zhī xīyì zài shítou shàng shàitàiyáng.
This lizard is basking on a rock.
Kēmò duō lóng shì shìjiè shàng zuì dà de xīyì.
The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard in the world.

Tips

usage
is a bound morpheme — it is almost never used alone. Its primary use is in 蜥蜴 (xīyì), the common word for lizard. The character contains (insect/creature radical), indicating it belongs to the category of crawling creatures.

Components

radical
chóng
insect; small creature
Left is the insect / small-creature radical, originally a drawing of a coiled snake. In classical Chinese covered insects, reptiles, and small cold-blooded animals — exactly the bracket lizards fall into. Anchors in the bug-and-reptile family alongside snake, frog, spider, crab.
phonetic
to split; analyze
Right supplies the sound — xī straight through, no drift. The 'split apart' meaning of ( wood + axe) doesn't contribute semantically; it is a pure sound-tag pinning down the lizard reading. Always appears in the disyllable 蜥蜴 'lizard,' borrowed from an old animal name preserved as a compound.

Stroke Order