豉 (chǐ): fermented (salted) black beans

Meanings

1 fermented (salted) black beans
2 douchi

Characters

豉

chǐ

fermented black beans

Examples

豆豉是中国传统的发酵调味料。

Dòuchǐ shì Zhōngguó chuántǒng de fājiào tiáowèiliào.

Douchi is a traditional Chinese fermented seasoning.

这道豉汁排骨非常下饭。

Zhè dào chǐ zhī páigǔ fēicháng xiàfàn.

These black bean sauce spareribs go great with rice.

Tips

usage

Almost never appears alone - you'll see 豆豉 (fermented black beans) in recipes or 豉汁 (black bean sauce) on Cantonese menus. Reading 豉 as chǐ (not shì or another guess) is the key thing to remember.

mistakes

The pinyin is chǐ (3rd tone), not shì. Easy to misread because the right side 支 looks like a phonetic clue but it isn't.

Components

radical

豆 dòu

bean; ancient stemmed dish

Left bean radical - originally a pictograph of a stemmed ritual food dish, repurposed in modern Chinese to mean 'bean.' The indexing element. Marks 豉 as a soybean product: fermented black soybeans, the salty backbone of Cantonese cooking (豆豉鸡, chicken with black bean). Same family as 豌 (pea).

phonetic

支 zhī

branch; prop (phonetic)

Right 支 supplies the sound, drifting zhī to chǐ through palatalization. 支 originally pictured a hand holding a stem; fermented beans were traditionally pressed in stem-like jars. Same phonetic family as 技, 枝, 肢 - most stay near zhī. 豉 is one of the few that wandered.