钉 (dìng): to nail; to fasten (by driving…

Meanings

1 to nail; to fasten (by driving a nail/spike/pin)
2 to staple; to pin
3 to sew on (a button)

Characters

钉

dìng

to nail; to fasten (by driving a nail/spike/pin)

Examples

他把画钉在墙上。

Tā bǎ huà dìng zài qiáng shàng.

He nailed the painting to the wall.

你能帮我钉一下这个扣子吗？

Nǐ néng bāng wǒ dìng yīxià zhè ge kòuzi ma?

Could you help me sew this button on?

把这些纸钉在一起。

Bǎ zhèxiē zhǐ dìng zài yīqǐ.

Staple these papers together.

Tips

usage

Use dìng (fourth tone) when the character means the ACTION of fastening: driving a nail in, stapling pages, pinning fabric, sewing a button on. Anchor compound: 钉书机 (stapler — literally 'staple-paper machine'). Inside the idiom 板上钉钉 (set in stone), both readings appear in order: dìng for the action of nailing, then dīng for the nail itself.

mistakes

The verb sense 钉 'to follow closely / stick to someone' stays on first tone (dīng) even though it's a verb — it's a separate sense built on the noun. Only the physical-fastening verb (nail, staple, pin, sew on) shifts to dìng. If a person can hover or trail at the edges of the meaning, it's dīng; if a hammer or staple is involved, it's dìng.

Components

radical

钅 jīn

metal; gold (radical form)

Left metal radical — simplified side-form of 金, indexing radical for 钉. Marks 钉 as a metal object: nails, tacks, spikes are forged hardware. Same metal-radical family as 锁 (lock), 钱 (money), 铁 (iron), 钥 (key), 锅 (pot). Practical industrial radical for any small forged item.

phonetic

丁 dīng

nail-shape; man

Right phonetic 丁 — supplies the sound exactly (dīng, no shift). Itself one of the oldest characters: a top-down view of a nailhead with the shaft below, the literal pictograph of a nail. So 钉 is doubly the nail-character — metal radical plus a graph that already meant 'nail' on its own. The semantic and phonetic roles fuse perfectly.