jìng
noun #24,888

Meanings

  1. 1 path; trail
  2. 2 diameter
  3. 3 directly

Examples

Huāyuánlǐ yǒu yītiáo xiǎojìng.
There is a small path in the garden.
Zhège yuán de zhíjìng shì shí límǐ.
The diameter of this circle is ten centimeters.

Tips

usage
is in 直径 (zhíjìng, diameter), 半径 (bànjìng, radius), 途径 (tújìng, way/channel), 小径 (xiǎojìng, path/trail), and 径直 (jìngzhí, directly/straight).

Components

radical
chì
step (radical form)
Left step radical — a small footstep, the side form of 'walk.' It indexes in the family of path and motion characters: go, toward, wait, subtle, follower. Anything written with on the left is, at root, about moving along a road on foot.
phonetic
yòu
hand; again
Top-right sits where traditional had the full phonetic. In the 1956 simplification was contracted to stacked over , preserving the silhouette but shortening the writing. Together + still carries the phonetic role, supplying the sound jīng → jìng for the parent.
phonetic
gōng
work; craft
Bottom-right — the second half of the contracted phonetic. Standalone pictures a carpenter's square; here it has no semantic role of its own, only completing the phonetic frame. The same + contraction pattern appears in (warp), (light), (neck).

Stroke Order

jìng