fèi
noun HSK 3 #2,182

Meanings

  1. 1 fee; expense; charge
  2. 2 to spend; to consume
  3. 3 wasteful

Examples

Zhè tài fèi shíjiān le.
This takes too much time.
Xuéfèi duōshǎo qián?
How much is the tuition fee?
Nǐ tài fèi diàn le.
You use too much electricity.

Tips

usage
is used as a suffix for many types of fees: 学费 (tuition), 房费 (room charge), 水费 (water bill), 电费 (electricity bill), 停车费 (parking fee).

Components

radical
bèi
cowrie shell; money
Bottom — the shell radical, indexing radical of . Cowrie shells were Shang-and-Zhou currency, so the radical anchors any money-or-commerce concept. To is to spend money or expend resources. Same radical heads wealth, goods, expensive, buy — the whole money-and-trade family.
phonetic
not (here phonetic)
Top supplies the sound: fú drifted to fèi with regular tone and onset stability (f/f) — a clean phonetic match. itself depicts two arrows bound together, an old negation symbol. Same phonetic appears in (boil), (brush off), (Buddha) — a productive fú/fèi family.

Stroke Order

fèi