泥 (nì) · to be stuck on; to rigidly cling to

Meanings

1 to be stuck on; to rigidly cling to
2 to plaster; to fill in (with putty or paste)

Characters

泥

nì

to be stuck on; to rigidly cling to

Examples

HSK 5

他过于泥古，难以接受新事物。

Tā guòyú nìgǔ, nányǐ jiēshòu xīn shìwù.

He clings to old ways too much to accept anything new.

HSK 7-9

做事不要拘泥于形式。

Zuòshì búyào jūnì yú xíngshì.

Don't be a stickler for form when doing things.

Tips

register

nì is the figurative, literary reading: to be stuck on something, to cling to it inflexibly. The image is mud-as-glue - mental mud rather than physical mud. Mainly seen in 拘泥 (to rigidly adhere to formalities) and 泥古 (to stick to ancient ways), both of which carry a critical tone.

mistakes

Don't read 拘泥 as jūní or 泥古 as nígǔ - the second-tone everyday reading is wrong here. When 泥 means 'cling to / be stuck in (mentally)', it switches to nì (fourth tone).

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form)

Same water radical as the ní reading. The figurative 'stuck in mental mud' sense rides directly on the physical-mud image - sticky, gluey, hard to pull free of.

phonetic

尼 ní

Buddhist nun

Phonetic 尼 - for this reading the tone shifts from second to fourth: ní → nì. The graph is the same as the everyday mud reading; only the tone distinguishes the figurative 'cling to' sense from the literal 'mud' sense.