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

你怎么来这么迟？

Nǐ zěnme lái zhème chí?

Why did you come so late?

迟到总比不到好。

Chídào zǒng bǐ búdào hǎo.

Better late than never.

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.

他反应有点迟。

Tā fǎnyìng yǒudiǎn chí.

His reaction is a bit slow.

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.