noun #1,067

Meanings

  1. 1 Buddhist nun
  2. 2 ni (phonetic)

Examples

Tā chū jiādāng le nígū.
She became a Buddhist nun.
Níbó'ěr shì yīgè měilì de guójiā.
Nepal is a beautiful country.

Tips

usage
on its own usually appears as part of compound words: 尼姑 (Buddhist nun), 尼龙 (nylon), or in transliterations like 尼泊尔 (Nepal), 悉尼 (Sydney).

Components

radical
shī
corpse; reclining body
Outer-top body radical — historically a person reclining or seated, not literally a corpse. Indexes in the -family alongside , , , — body-and-dwelling characters. Originally depicted two people leaning back-to-back, so supplies the seated-figure half of that picture.
phonetic
spoon; bent person
Lower-right — a bent or kneeling figure, the second person in the original 'two people back-to-back' image. Also supplies a phonetic anchor: bǐ → ní reflects an Old Chinese consonant shift; the intimate 'next-to' meaning of (in 尼姑, 尼龙) survives from the closeness of the two figures.

Stroke Order