interjection #9,163

Meanings

  1. 1 huh?; eh?; what? (expression of surprise or puzzlement)

Examples

Yí, nǐ zěnme zài zhèr?
Huh? How come you're here?
Yí, wǒ de yàoshi ne?
Huh? Where are my keys?
Yí, zhège wèidào bùduì.
Hmm, this doesn't taste right.

Tips

usage
expresses mild surprise or curiosity — something unexpected caught your attention. Compare: (à) = general surprise, (āi) = to get attention, (ń/ǹ) = agreement/acknowledgment.

Components

radical
kǒu
mouth
Left mouth radical — the indexing element. is an interjection of surprise ('huh? what?'), so the mouth anchor is literal: a sound coming out involuntarily. Puts in the voice-particle family with (oh), (oh I see), (hey), (mm) — a whole shelf of small mouth-prefixed exclamations marking different shades of reaction.
phonetic
level; foreigner (here phonetic)
Right supplies the sound — yí matches the parent reading with no drift. originally depicted a person with a great bow ( + ), referring to the eastern peoples; later it took the senses of 'level, calm' and 'foreigner.' For it functions purely as a sound-marker, lending the reading to this expression of mild astonishment.

Stroke Order