旗

qí
noun #5,361

Meanings

  1. 1 flag
  2. 2 banner

Examples

HSK 5
Xuéxiào shēngqǐ le guóqí.
The school raised the national flag.
HSK 7-9
Dàlóu dǐngshàng piāoyáng zhe yī miàn hóngqí.
A red flag fluttered atop the building.

Tips

memory
方 (direction marker) on the left: a flag marks direction.

Components

radical
㫃 yǎn
fluttering banner
Left side 㫃 is the 'fluttering banner' radical, a 方 base with a 2-stroke pennant streaming from the top, picturing cloth flapping on a flagpole. It is the indexing element for the whole flag-family: 旗 (flag), 族 (clan-banner = lineage), 旅 (travel under banner). 方 below 㫃 is the conventional dictionary lookup key.
phonetic
其 qí
his; that one
Right phonetic 其 supplies the sound, qí matches directly with no shift. 其 originally pictured a winnowing-basket and was later borrowed for the third-person possessive. Same 其 phonetic produces 期 (period), 棋 (chess), 旗 (flag), and 欺 (deceive), a fertile rhyme group anchored by the qí/qī sound.

Stroke Order

旗 qí