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Definition 2025

美

美

See also: 菐 and 実

Translingual

Japanese stroke order
Stroke order

Han character

美 (radical 123 羊+3, 9 strokes, cangjie input 廿土大 (TGK), four-corner 80431, composition ⿱𦍌大)

Descendants

References

  • KangXi: page 951, character 10
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 28435
  • Dae Jaweon: page 1393, character 17
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 5, page 3126, character 5
  • Unihan data for U+7F8E

Chinese

simp. and trad.
 美

Glyph origin

Characters in the same phonetic series (美) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
美 *mriʔ
渼 *mriʔ
媄 *mriʔ

Ideogram (指事) : 羊 ‎(“goat, sheep”) + 人 ‎(“person”) – a person with a headdress of feathers or ram's horn.

Pronunciation

Rime
Character 美
Reading # 1/1
Initial (聲) 明 (4)
Final (韻) 脂 (17)
Tone (調) Rising (X)
Openness (開合) Open
Division (等) Chongniu III
Fanqie 無鄙切
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang		 /mˠiɪX/
Pan
Wuyun		 /mᵚiX/
Shao
Rongfen		 /miɪX/
Edwin
Pulleyblank		 /mjiX/
Li
Rong		 /mjiX/
Wang
Li		 /miX/
Bernard
Karlgren		 /miX/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex		 mǐ
Baxter-Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character 美
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin)		 měi
Middle
Chinese		 ‹ mijX ›
Old
Chinese		 /*[m]rəjʔ/
English beautiful

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter-Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character 美
Reading # 1/1
No. 8951
Phonetic
component		 美
Rime
group		 脂
Rime
subdivision		 2
Corresponding
MC rime		 美
Old
Chinese		 /*mriʔ/
Notes 甲文象大人首插翎羽表美觀，取陳獨秀說

Definitions

美

  1. beautiful; pretty; attractive; good-looking
    美人  ―  měirén  ―  beautiful woman
  2. delicious; tasty; flavoursome
    美食  ―  měishí  ―  culinary delicacy
  3. good; fine; satisfactory; happy
  4. to beautify; to prettify
  5. to praise; to commend
  6. (dialectal) to be pleased with oneself
  7. beautiful things; beauty
  8. Short for 美洲 (Měizhōu, “America (continent)”).
  9. Short for 美國／美国 (Měiguó, “United States of America”).
  10. A surname​. Mei

Compounds

Japanese

Kanji

美

(grade 3 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Suffix

美 ‎(hiragana み, romaji -mi)

  1. suffix used by female given names, such as 奈美(なみ, Nami), 恵美(えみ, Emi; めぐみ, Megumi), 宏美(ひろみ, Hiromi)
  2. (rare) suffix used by male given names

Readings

Compounds

Korean

Hanja

美 • ‎(mi) (hangeul 미, McCune-Reischauer mi, Yale mi)

  1. the USA, the Americas (in compounds, in news media)
  2. beautiful

Compounds

Vietnamese

Han character

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

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