zhǐ
noun #13,901

Measure Word

一个

Meanings

  1. 1 toe

Characters

Examples

Tā de dà zhǐ shòushāng le.
His big toe was injured.
Jiǎozhǐtou dòng de fāhóng.
The toes were red from the cold.

Tips

usage
is the formal/written form. In everyday speech, 脚趾 or 脚趾头 is much more common for 'toe'.

Components

radical
foot
Left-side foot radical — pictograph of a leg ending in a foot ( ankle on top, toes below). The indexing radical, naturally so: is the toe specifically. Foot-radical family covers movement and lower-body anatomy: to run, to jump, heel, ankle, to step on.
phonetic
zhǐ
stop; foot
Right side supplies the sound: zhǐ → zhǐ, identical pinyin and tone. is itself an ancient pictograph of a footprint (the same shape at the bottom of ), originally meaning 'foot' before shifting to 'stop / halt.' Double semantic echo: a foot-character built from foot + foot, with the right side also locking the sound.

Stroke Order

zhǐ