颈 (jǐng) · neck

Meanings

1 neck

Characters

颈

jǐng

neck

Examples

HSK 6

她的颈上戴着一条项链。

Tā de jǐng shàng dài zhe yì tiáo xiàngliàn.

She wore a necklace around her neck.

HSK 7-9

长颈鹿的颈很长。

Chángjǐnglù de jǐng hěn cháng.

A giraffe's neck is very long.

Tips

usage

颈 is the formal, written word for neck. In everyday speech 脖子 is more common. 颈 appears in compounds like 颈椎 (cervical vertebra) and 长颈鹿 (giraffe).

register

There is a colloquial reading gěng, used in the spoken word 脖颈 (the nape, the back of the neck). Outside that one word the character is read jǐng.

Components

radical

页 yè

head; page (radical)

Right radical 页 historically depicted a kneeling person with an emphasized head. Anchors 颈 in head and face anatomy. Same radical family as 头 (head), 顶 (top), 项 (back of neck), 颜 (face; color). The neck is where the head meets the body, hence indexed under head.

phonetic

巠 jīng

underground stream (phonetic)

Left phonetic 巠 supplies the sound (jīng drifted to jǐng, just a tone shift). 颈's left side is the contracted 5-stroke form; the standalone 巠 character keeps the fuller traditional 7-stroke shape with loom-threads above 工. The jīng family 经 (classic; manage), 径 (path), 茎 (stem) all use this same contracted left side, visually shorter than the traditional glyph but conceptually identical.