哔 (bì): beep (sound)

Meanings

1 beep (sound)
2 bleep (censoring sound)
3 pip

Characters

哔

bì

beep; bleep sound

Examples

刷卡的时候会听到哔的一声。

Shuākǎ de shíhou huì tīngdào bì de yī shēng.

You'll hear a beep when you swipe the card.

脏话被哔掉了。

Zānghuà bèi bì diào le.

The swear words were bleeped out.

Tips

usage

哔 is widely used online as a censoring bleep, similar to how English uses 'bleep' or '*'. The video platform Bilibili is nicknamed 'B站' (bì zhàn) from this character.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left mouth radical, the indexing component — it marks 哔 as a sound-related word, in the family of 叫 to shout, 喊 to yell, 啊 ah, 嗯 hm. 哔 transcribes the beep noise (computers, gates, censors); 口 announces 'this is a noise made through the mouth, or an onomatopoeia.'

phonetic

毕 bì

finish; complete

Right 毕 supplies the sound — bì straight through, no drift. The 'finish' meaning of 毕 doesn't enter; it serves purely as a sound-tag, picked because Mandarin needed a syllable to transcribe English-style beep noises. Hence 哔哔 'beep beep' and the censor's 哔 mute over rude words on TV.