verb #6,082

Meanings

  1. 1 to doubt; to suspect
  2. 2 uncertain; questionable

Examples

Wǒ huáiyí tā shuō dehuà.
I doubt what he said.
Háowú yíwèn, tā shì zuìhǎo de.
Without a doubt, he is the best.
Rúguǒ yǒu yíwèn, qǐng tíchū lái.
If you have questions, please raise them.

Tips

usage
怀疑 (huáiyí) = to doubt/suspect, 疑问 (yíwèn) = question/doubt, 可疑 (kěyí) = suspicious.

Components

radical
foot; bolt (radical)
Right-side (with the small upper fragment fused on top) — historically depicts a foot or leg, here representing the standing figure that hesitates. Indexing radical for . Standalone has 5 strokes; here it carries 7 because it has absorbed a small upper graphic residue from the original crossroads-pictograph that no longer parses as a separate unit.
semantic
spoon; ladle (semantic)
Top-left — a stylised spoon or curved blade. The early form of pictured a person standing at a fork in the road; this top-left fragment is one residue of that posture. In the modern character it functions as a graphic anchor for the upper-left quadrant rather than carrying live meaning.
semantic
shǐ
arrow (semantic)
Lower-left — an arrow with feathered shaft. The classical reading is that the doubting person is poised mid-flight, the arrow pointing in one direction while the body leans elsewhere. Same arrow shape underlies (short) and (know).

Stroke Order