Kilo Lingo

(āi) - ah, oh (interjection of surprise or mild dismay) in Mandarin

āi

Traditional: 哎

Line drawing of 哎
Coloured illustration of 哎
#896 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

ah, oh (interjection of surprise or mild dismay)

Word origin

哎 is a phono-semantic compound built from the mouth radical 口, marking it as a spoken interjection, with 艾 (ài) supplying the sound. As with most interjections, the mouth radical signals that the character writes an exclamation rather than a concrete meaning.

Origin
phono-semantic compound
Root
口 (mouth radical) + 艾 (ài, phonetic)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 哎

Examples

Oh, I forgot to bring my wallet.

Ah, how come you are late again?

Ah, what a pity.

Hey, don't say that.

Oh no, I forgot my keys again.

哎 (āi) is an interjection expressing surprise or mild dismay.

Appears in 1 word

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 哎.

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This word is part of lesson 18.