炽 (chì) · blazing, flaming, ardent

Meanings

1 blazing
2 flaming
3 ardent
4 splendid
5 illustrious

Characters

炽

chì

blazing; ardent

Examples

HSK 7-9

炉火炽热,把整间屋子都烤暖了。

Lúhuǒ chìrè, bǎ zhěng jiān wūzi dōu kǎo nuǎn le.

The stove fire was blazing hot, warming the whole room.

HSK 7-9

他对科学的热情依然炽烈。

Tā duì kēxué de rèqíng yīrán chìliè.

His passion for science is as fierce as ever.

Tips

usage

炽 is mostly literary; in modern use it appears in compounds like 炽热 (chìrè, 'red-hot'), 炽烈 (chìliè, 'blazing'), 白炽灯 (báichìdēng, 'incandescent lamp'). On its own it's poetic.

memory

The 火 (fire) radical on the left tells you everything: 炽 means fire so intense it's almost showy - 'splendid' and 'illustrious' come from that same blaze metaphor.

Components

radical

火 huǒ

fire

Left-side fire radical - pictograph of flames rising in three tongues (the simplified standalone 火, distinct from the four-dot bottom-fire 灬). The indexing radical, naturally so: 炽 means blazing-hot, fiercely burning (炽热 white-hot, 炽烈 fierce-intense). Used figuratively for any intense passion or activity. Same fire-family: 焰 flame, 烧 to burn, 烫 scalding, 燃 to ignite, 灼 to scorch.

phonetic

只 zhǐ

only; single

Right side is graphically 只 in modern simplified form, a substitute for the traditional 戠 (zhī) that 熾 originally carried. Supplies the sound: zhī → chì with regular zh/ch alternation. 只 was chosen for acoustic proximity. Don't read meaning from 只 'only' here - it's a stand-in glyph; traditional 熾 keeps the transparent 戠.