xìng / xīng
noun #8,238

Meanings

  1. 1 interest; the desire to do something
  2. 2 mood; spirits; excitement

Examples

Tā duì Zhōngwén hěn gǎn xìngqù.
He is very interested in Chinese.
Dàjiā wán de hěn jìnxìng, gāogāoxìngxìng de huíjiā le.
Everyone played to their heart's content and went home very happy.
Zhèchǎng yǔ ràng dàjiā hěn sǎoxìng.
The rain dampened everyone's mood.

Tips

usage
The xìng reading is the 'interest / mood' family: 兴趣 (interest), 高兴 (happy), 尽兴 (to one's heart's content), 扫兴 (to have one's spirits dampened), 即兴 (impromptu, done on a whim). For the rise / flourish sense see the xīng reading.

Components

radical
eight; to separate (bottom radical)
Bottom indexing radical , two diverging strokes, originally a splitting motion (the source of 'eight'). Here it sits as a stylised base, the two splayed feet under the rising figure. The placement is somewhat arbitrary after simplification; the pre-reform form was indexed under .
semantic
xiǎo
small dots; raised hands (top radical-form)
Top three dots, the radical-supplement form sometimes called 'small dots' or 'raised hands'. In they are the simplified residue of four hands raising up an object: traditional had hands gripping and lifting. The dots preserve the lifting-hands imagery in compressed form.
ideograph
one; horizontal bar (middle)
Middle single horizontal, representing the object being lifted by the hands above. In traditional this slot held a more complex middle with a framed core; the 1956 simplification flattened everything to one bar. A clean dividing line between hands and base.

Stroke Order

xìng