迟 (chí) · late; delayed; tardy

Meanings

1 late; delayed; tardy
2 slow

Characters

迟

chí

late; slow; delayed

辶 (movement) + 尺 (ruler/measure) - movement measured and found slow

Examples

HSK 3

迟到总比不到好。

Chídào zǒng bǐ búdào hǎo.

Better late than never.

HSK 5

他反应有点迟。

Tā fǎnyìng yǒudiǎn chí.

His reaction is a bit slow.

HSK 6

事不宜迟，我们马上出发吧。

Shìbùyíchí, wǒmen mǎshàng chūfā ba.

There's no time to lose - let's set off immediately.

Tips

usage

迟 is the literary/formal form of 'late'. In everyday speech, 晚 (wǎn) is far more common. 迟 appears in set phrases and compounds.

culture

事不宜迟 (shì bù yí chí) - 'the matter should not be delayed' - a common idiom meaning 'let's act now'.

usage

Common compounds: 迟到 (chídào, to be late), 迟早 (chízǎo, sooner or later), 迟疑 (chíyí, to hesitate), 迟钝 (chídùn, slow-witted).

Components

radical

辶 chuò

to walk; motion (variant form of 辵)

Motion radical wrapping around the bottom-left - the abbreviated form of 辵 (a foot stepping along a road). Indexes 迟 in the family of movement and travel verbs alongside 进 enter, 退 retreat, 过 pass, 远 far, 近 near. To be 迟 is fundamentally to move slowly through time.

phonetic

尺 chǐ

ruler; foot (measure)

Inner component 尺 supplies the sound: chǐ → chí with only tone shift. Originally 迟 was written 遲 with a more elaborate phonetic; the 1956 reform substituted the simpler 尺. 尺 itself depicts a person bending to measure with a ruler - coincidentally fitting 迟's drawn-out, measured-pace meaning.