Kilo Lingo

(chí) - to hold, to maintain (bound morpheme) in Mandarin

chí

Traditional: 持

Line drawing of 持
Coloured illustration of 持
#5074 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

to hold, to maintain (bound morpheme)

Word origin

A phono-semantic character: the hand radical 扌 gives the meaning of grasping or holding, and 寺 (sì) supplies the sound, giving the sense to hold or maintain.

Origin
phono-semantic
Root
扌 (hand radical) + 寺 (sì, phonetic)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 持

Examples

Please stay calm.

I'll always support you.

He stuck to his view.

He persists in reading every day.

Please support my decision.

持 (chí) carries the sense of holding or keeping. It rarely stands alone but powers 保持 (to maintain), 支持 (to support), and 坚持 (to persist), all built around the idea of not letting go.

Appears in 3 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 持.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 102.