钉 (dìng) · to nail; to fasten (by driving a nail/spike/pin)

Meanings

1 to nail; to fasten (by driving a nail/spike/pin)
2 to staple; to pin
3 to sew on (a button)

Characters

钉

dìng

to nail; to fasten (by driving a nail/spike/pin)

Examples

HSK 3

把这些纸钉在一起。

Bǎ zhèxiē zhǐ dìng zài yìqǐ.

Staple these papers together.

HSK 5

他把画钉在墙上。

Tā bǎ huà dìng zài qiáng shàng.

He nailed the painting to the wall.

HSK 6

你能帮我钉一下这个扣子吗？

Nǐ néng bāng wǒ dìng yíxià zhège kòuzi ma?

Could you help me sew this button on?

Tips

usage

Use dìng (fourth tone) when the character means the ACTION of fastening: driving a nail in, stapling pages, pinning fabric, sewing a button on. Anchor compound: 钉书机 (stapler - literally 'staple-paper machine'). Inside the idiom 板上钉钉 (set in stone), both readings appear in order: dìng for the action of nailing, then dīng for the nail itself.

mistakes

The verb sense 钉 'to follow closely / stick to someone' stays on first tone (dīng) even though it's a verb - it's a separate sense built on the noun. Only the physical-fastening verb (nail, staple, pin, sew on) shifts to dìng. If a person can hover or trail at the edges of the meaning, it's dīng; if a hammer or staple is involved, it's dìng.

Components

radical

钅 jīn

metal; gold (radical form)

Left metal radical - simplified side-form of 金, indexing radical for 钉. Marks 钉 as a metal object: nails, tacks, spikes are forged hardware. Same metal-radical family as 锁 (lock), 钱 (money), 铁 (iron), 钥 (key), 锅 (pot). Practical industrial radical for any small forged item.

phonetic

丁 dīng

nail-shape; man

Right phonetic 丁 - supplies the sound exactly (dīng, no shift). Itself one of the oldest characters: a top-down view of a nailhead with the shaft below, the literal pictograph of a nail. So 钉 is doubly the nail-character - metal radical plus a graph that already meant 'nail' on its own. The semantic and phonetic roles fuse perfectly.