Kilo Lingo

(bì) - must, necessarily (bound morpheme) in Mandarin

Traditional: 必

Line drawing of 必
Coloured illustration of 必
#5056 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

must, necessarily (bound morpheme)

Word origin

A single character meaning must or necessarily. It is now written as 心 (heart) with an added stroke, though its original graph is thought to have depicted a handle or marked-off standard; it is borrowed for the abstract sense of necessity.

Origin
pictographic
Root
必 (bì), originally a graph of a handle or boundary marker, borrowed for the meaning must

Stroke order

Stroke order for 必

Examples

You must arrive on time.

There's no need to worry.

You don't need to apologise.

Putting in this much heart, you are certain to succeed.

I will definitely be there tomorrow.

必 (bì) is a bound morpheme meaning must or necessarily. It rarely stands alone but drives the modal pair 必须 (must) and 必要 (necessary), as well as the negation 不必 (need not).

Appears in 3 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 必.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 102.