膝

xī
noun #8,342

Meanings

  1. 1 knee

Characters

Examples

HSK 5
Tā de xīgài shòushāng le.
His knee was injured.
HSK 5
Shuǐ dào le tā de xīgài yǐshàng.
The water was above his knees.
HSK 6
Tā guì zài dìshang, xīgài hěn téng.
She knelt on the ground and her knees hurt.

Tips

usage
膝 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. The common word for knee is 膝盖. 膝 appears in literary or compound words: 促膝谈心 (to have a heart-to-heart talk, literally 'touching knees and talking').
memory
The radical 月 (flesh/body) on the left marks it as a body part. The right side 桼 gives the approximate sound xī.

Components

radical
⺼ ròu
flesh; meat (radical form)
Left-side flesh radical - the side form of 肉, visually identical to 月 moon but historically distinct. It tags 膝 as a body part, the standard prefix for anatomy chars alongside 脚 foot, 腿 leg, 胳 arm, 肩 shoulder. The radical-variant entry makes the meat-vs-moon distinction explicit when learners tap through.
phonetic
桼 qī
lacquer tree
Right side 桼 supplies the sound - qī drifting to xī through a regular palatalization shift. 桼 is an older form of 漆 lacquer, depicting sap dripping from a cut tree. The connection to knees is purely phonetic; meaning rides on the flesh radical alone.

Stroke Order

膝 xī