guǐ
adjective #39,190

Meanings

  1. 1 sly; crafty; deceitful
  2. 2 weird; bizarre

Examples

HSK 6
Tā de xiàoróng guǐyì, ràng rén bù'ān.
His smile was strangely sinister and made people uneasy.
HSK 7-9
Dírén yòng le guǐjì, dǎ le wǒmen yí gè cuòshǒubùjí.
The enemy used a cunning scheme that caught us off guard.

Tips

usage
Two senses: cunning and deceitful in 诡计 (a sly scheme), and strange or eerie in 诡异 (bizarre) and 诡秘 (mysterious, secretive).

Components

radical
yán
speech; words
The left-side speech radical, compressed form of . Deceit and trickery are carried out through misleading words, so the speech radical anchors the crafty sense of .
phonetic
wēi
danger
Supplies the sound; wēi shifted to guǐ. The danger meaning is not part of the word, only the reading, though a cunning trap being dangerous makes a handy mnemonic.

Stroke Order

guǐ