鸟 (niǎo) · bird

Measure Word

一只鸟 zhī

Meanings

1 bird
2 to pay attention to; to bother with
3 damned; goddamn

Characters

鸟

niǎo

bird

Pictograph of a bird in profile - see the components panel for stroke-by-stroke origin.

Examples

HSK 1

这只鸟会唱歌。

Zhè zhī niǎo huì chànggē.

This bird can sing.

HSK 1

谁也不鸟他。

Shéi yě bù niǎo tā.

Nobody pays him any mind.

HSK 3

树上有一只鸟。

Shùshàng yǒu yì zhī niǎo.

There is a bird in the tree.

Tips

register

Beyond the bird sense, 鸟 has a northern-dialect verb use meaning 'to pay attention to / bother with', almost always negated: 不鸟你 'won't deal with you'. It also bolts onto nouns as a crude intensifier ('damned') in Ming-Qing fiction like the Water Margin. Both senses are colloquial and slightly coarse.

usage

The 儿-suffixed form 鸟儿 sounds affectionate and is common in northern speech.

Components

pictograph

鸟 niǎo

bird

Pictograph of a bird in profile - top stroke is the beak, the curved upper strokes form the head and back, the inner dot marks the eye, and the bottom hook traces a talon. Simplified from 11-stroke 鳥 (whose bottom 灬 was tail feathers, not fire). Kangxi #196, indexing most bird chars: 鸡 chicken, 鸭 duck, 鸽 pigeon, 鹰 eagle.

Radical

Bird Kangxi #196

The long-tailed bird radical, contrast with 隹 (short-tailed). Highly productive - Chinese names most birds with 鸟 plus a phonetic: 鸡 (chicken), 鸭 (duck), 鹅 (goose), 鸽 (pigeon), 鹰 (eagle), 鹤 (crane), 鹊 (magpie). Usually positioned on the right; simplified 鸟 has 5 strokes, traditional 鳥 has 11.