鼻 (bí): nose

Meanings

1 nose

Examples

他的鼻子很高。

Tā de bízi hěn gāo.

He has a high nose.

感冒了流鼻涕。

Gǎnmào le liúbítì.

I caught a cold and have a runny nose.

这只狗的鼻子很灵。

Zhè zhī gǒu de bízi hěn líng.

This dog has a very sharp sense of smell.

Tips

history

自 (self) + 畀 — originally 自 meant 'nose' (people point at their nose to say 'me'). When 自 was borrowed for 'self,' the new compound 鼻 was created to keep the original 'nose' meaning.

Components

semantic

自 zì

self; nose (original)

Top 自 was originally the pictograph of a nose — a frontal drawing of nostrils and bridge. When 自 drifted to 'self' (Chinese speakers point at their own nose to indicate 'me'), a new character 鼻 was coined by adding a phonetic below. 自 carries the original picture; 鼻 is a back-formation.

phonetic

畀 bì

give (here phonetic)

Bottom 畀 supplies the sound — bì → bí, tone shift, exact phonetic match. 畀 itself is an archaic verb 'to give, bestow,' originally depicting a presented object on a stand. The meaning is inert; pure phonetic anchor. 鼻 is itself Kangxi radical 209, a self-radical still legible at the leaf level.

Radical

Nose Kangxi #209

An indexing radical for the nose and the sense of smell. Built from 自 (originally 'nose', a pictograph of the organ) plus 畀 as phonetic. Productivity is small — 鼾 (snore), 鼽 (stuffy nose), 齆 (nasal voice) — and modern compounds typically use 鼻 itself in front of another character (鼻孔 nostril, 鼻涕 mucus, 鼻塞 stuffy nose).