noun #15,834

Meanings

  1. 1 fin (of a fish)

Characters

Examples

Shāyú de bèi qí lùchū le shuǐmiàn.
The shark's dorsal fin broke the surface of the water.
Yú qí bāngzhù yú zài shuǐzhōng bǎochí pínghéng.
Fins help fish maintain balance in the water.

Tips

usage
is usually combined with a modifier: 背鳍 (dorsal fin), 胸鳍 (pectoral fin), 尾鳍 (caudal/tail fin), 鱼鳍 (fish fin in general). The infamous 鱼翅 (yúchì, shark fin) uses a different character.

Components

radical
fish
is the fish radical and files in the aquatic anatomy family - fins, scales, gills are all rendered with on the left. Same indexing in scale, gill, shark.
phonetic
elder; aged
gives the sound qí exactly. The literary 'elder' meaning has no role here - pure phonetic. itself combines (old) + (taste) and shows up rarely in modern Chinese except in compounds like 耆老 (the aged).

Stroke Order