noun #22,297

Measure Word

Meanings

  1. 1 navel
  2. 2 umbilicus
  3. 3 belly flap of a crab

Examples

Yīng'ér chūshēng hòu yào jiǎn duàn qídài.
The umbilical cord needs to be cut after a baby is born.
Pángxiè de qí kěyǐ yòngláI qūfēn cíxióng.
The belly flap of a crab can be used to distinguish males from females.

Tips

usage
is a bound form mostly seen in compound words like 肚脐 (navel) and 脐带 (umbilical cord). On its own it rarely appears in everyday speech.

Components

radical
ròu
meat; flesh (radical form of 肉)
Meat-flesh radical on the left — looks like moon but is the side-form of . It files in the body-parts family with chest, belly, waist. A navel is a feature of the abdomen, and the radical pins the meaning to the body wall.
phonetic
even; level (here phonetic)
Right side supplies the qí sound exactly. The 'even; aligned' meaning has a faint echo — the navel sits dead-centre on the belly, the body's natural midpoint — but the dominant role is phonetic. Same series: dose, cross-river.

Stroke Order