(chī) - to eat in Mandarin

chī

Traditional: 吃

Line drawing of 吃
Coloured illustration of 吃
HSK 1
#130 of 2,700Core 1000

Translation

to eat

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Word origin

吃 is a phono-semantic compound: the 口 (mouth) radical gives the meaning, eating, and 乞 (qǐ) supplies the sound. The mouth element makes the eating sense transparent.

Origin
phono-semantic compound
Root
口 (kǒu, mouth radical) + 乞 (qǐ, phonetic)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 吃

吃

Examples

?

Have you eaten?

。

I want to eat rice.

。

Let's go eat together.

。

He fell asleep after taking the medicine.

。

The child doesn't like eating meat.

吃 (chī) means to eat. It is used as a verb in everyday Mandarin speech.

Where this fits

Appears in 2 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 吃.

Used in

Grammar articles

(45)

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Mandarin · Free printables

吃: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "吃" (to eat): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

This word is taught in chapter 4, lesson 3: 吃, 嗯, 问题 and 7 more words.