蔑

miè
verb #31,317

Meanings

  1. 1 to despise; to scorn; to belittle
  2. 2 trifling; nothing
  3. 3 to slander; to defile

Examples

HSK 4
Búyào qīngmiè biérén de nǔlì.
Don't sneer at others' efforts.
HSK 7-9
Tā yòng mièshì de yǎnshén kàn zhe duìfāng.
He looked at the other person with contempt.

Tips

memory
蔑 rarely stands alone - it lives almost entirely in compounds: 蔑视 mièshì 'to despise', 轻蔑 qīngmiè 'contempt', 诬蔑 wūmiè 'to slander'.
register
The 'trifling; nothing' sense is literary and archaic, found in classical texts rather than everyday speech.

Components

radical
艹 cǎo
grass (radical form of 艸)
Grass radical on top - the top-cap form of 艸. It indexes 蔑 in the plant section, though here the connection is graphic rather than botanical: the three strokes once represented eyebrows in the oracle-bone form of the character.
semantic
罒 wǎng
eye (sideways form of 目)
Middle 罒 is the horizontal form of 目 eye. The original picture showed an eye with downcast lashes - a contemptuous sidelong glance. This is the semantic core of 蔑 'to look down on; to scorn'.
semantic
戍 shù
to garrison; soldier with weapon
Bottom 戍 pictures a soldier with a spear standing guard. Combined with the sideways eye above, the full graph evokes an armed figure casting a withering glare - sharpening 'scorn' into something hostile and dismissive.

Stroke Order

蔑 miè