wēi / wěi
adjective #17,387

Meanings

  1. 1 winding; meandering (in 委蛇)

Examples

Shānlù wēiyí, méiyǒu jìntóu.
The mountain path winds on without end.
Tā zhǐshì xūyǔwēiyí bàle.
He just goes through the polite motions and gives nothing real.

Tips

usage
The wēi reading exists only in 委蛇 (winding; a variant of 逶迤) and the idiom 虚与委蛇 (to feign cooperation). Everywhere else the character is read wěi.

Components

radical
woman; female
at the bottom is the indexing radical, a kneeling figure with crossed arms, the classical pose of yielding. With the bowed grain above, the whole picture is a person stooping in deference, the source of 'to entrust, delegate, winding'.
semantic
grain; standing crop
on top is a grain pictograph, a stalk drooping under ripe ears. Here it pictures a bowed head: heavy grain bending down is the visual metaphor for yielding and entrusting that powers the deferential senses of .

Stroke Order

wēi