鹰 (yīng) · eagle, hawk, falcon

Measure Word

一只鹰 zhī

Meanings

1 eagle
2 hawk
3 falcon

Examples

HSK 5

天上飞着一只鹰。

Tiānshang fēi zhe yī zhī yīng.

An eagle is flying in the sky.

HSK 7-9

他的眼睛像鹰一样锐利。

Tā de yǎnjing xiàng yīng yíyàng ruìlì.

His eyes are as sharp as an eagle's.

Tips

usage

鹰 is used as a general term for birds of prey. In politics, 鹰派 (yīngpài) means 'hawks' (hardliners), opposite of 鸽派 (gēpài, doves).

Components

radical

鸟 niǎo

bird

Bottom indexing radical 鸟 (simplified from 鳥) - the official classifier. The redundant doubling (隹 inside 倠 plus 鸟 below) is a feature of large bird-of-prey characters in the simplified system. The bird-radical anchors 鹰 firmly in the family of named birds: 鸡, 鸭, 鸽, 鸦.

semantic

广 guǎng

shelter; dotted-cliff radical

Top-left shelter radical 广 - represents the falconer's perch or mews where trained eagles were kept. Hawks were prized hunting companions in ancient China; the shelter component hints at their domesticated, perch-bound side. Not the indexing radical here (that role goes to 鸟 below).

semantic

倠 suī

person + short-tailed bird (semantic)

Inside the shelter sits 倠 - a person 亻 next to a perched bird 隹. The whole image is a falconer with a hawk on the arm, the original meaning of 鹰. Combined with the shelter above and the bird-radical below, the entire glyph spells out hawk-keeping in pictorial form.