míng
verb #11,572

Meanings

  1. 1 to cry (of birds, animals, insects)
  2. 2 to make a sound
  3. 3 to voice (one's feelings)

Examples

Gōngjī zài qīngchén míngjiào.
The rooster crows at dawn.
Qìchē bùtíng de míngdí.
The car keeps honking its horn.

Tips

memory
contains (mouth) and (bird) — a bird opening its mouth to call out.

Components

radical
niǎo
bird (simplified from 鳥)
Right bird radical — the indexing radical, marking as a bird-family word. Simplified collapses traditional 's eleven strokes into five. The whole character originally meant 'bird's cry'; only later did it extend to ringing bells, chiming clocks, sounding sirens — anything that makes itself heard.
semantic
kǒu
mouth
Left mouth — the source of the sound. is a compound ideograph (会意): mouth plus bird equals 'bird call'. Originally written with at the bird's beak, the picture is the open beak from which the cry issues. Pair with (call), (cry of birds/animals).

Stroke Order

míng