Kilo Lingo

(chí) - spoon; key (second half of "key") in Mandarin

chí

Traditional: 匙

Line drawing of 匙
Coloured illustration of 匙
#5359 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

spoon; key (second half of "key")

Word origin

A phono-semantic character: the 匕 (spoon or ladle) radical gives the meaning, and 是 (shì) supplies the sound. It means spoon, and in neutral tone forms the second half of 钥匙 (yàoshi), key.

Origin
phono-semantic
Root
是 (shì, phonetic) + 匕 (spoon radical)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 匙

Examples

The key has gone missing.

Please give me a spoon.

He opened the door with the key.

He used a small spoon to drink the soup.

匙 (chí, or neutral tone in 钥匙) means spoon on its own, but is far more common as the second half of 钥匙 (yào shi), key.

Appears in 1 word

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 匙.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 108.