蝶 (dié): butterfly (bound form)

Meanings

1 butterfly (bound form)

Characters

蝶

dié

butterfly

Examples

花间飞舞着一只蝴蝶。

Huā jiān fēiwǔ zhe yī zhī húdié.

A butterfly danced among the flowers.

蝶泳是游泳比赛中难度最大的项目之一。

Diéyǒng shì yóuyǒng bǐsài zhōng nándù zuì dà de xiàngmù zhīyī.

Butterfly stroke is one of the most difficult events in swimming competitions.

Tips

usage

蝶 is a bound form — it almost never stands alone. In everyday speech, butterfly is 蝴蝶 (húdié). 蝶 appears in compounds like 蝶泳 (butterfly stroke in swimming) and 粉蝶 (white cabbage butterfly).

Components

radical

虫 chóng

insect; worm

Left insect radical — the indexing radical, pictograph of a coiled worm broadened in Chinese to cover all bugs. Anchors 蝶 in the insect family with 蜂 (bee), 蚊 (mosquito), 蜘蛛 (spider). Butterflies sit comfortably here as winged insects.

phonetic

枼 yè

thin leaf-like plate

Right side 枼 — a tree-graph stacked with a leafy plate on top, the ancestor of 叶 (leaf). Supplies the sound yè drifting to dié, and adds a perfect semantic flavor: butterfly wings are thin flat leaves of colour. Same phonetic appears in 碟 (small plate) and 谍 (spy, 'thin slip of paper').