Kilo Lingo

(kāi) - to open; to start, to turn on in Mandarin

kāi

Traditional: 開

Line drawing of 开
Coloured illustration of 开
HSK 2
#405 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

to open; to start, to turn on

Word origin

开 means to open or to start. The traditional form 開 shows two hands lifting the bar (一) from inside a gate (門), the act of unbarring a door; the simplified 开 keeps the bar-and-hands element.

Origin
ideograph
Root
traditional 開: 門 (gate) enclosing hands lifting a bar; simplified 开

Stroke order

Stroke order for 开

开

Examples

。

Please open the door.

？

Has the engine started?

灯dēng。

Turn on the light.

。

Please open the window.

九jiǔ。

The shop opens at nine.

开 (kāi) - to open; to start, to turn on.

Appears in 13 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 开.

开始kāi shǐto begin, to start, beginning离开lí kāito leave, to depart from开心kāi xīnhappy, joyful, delighted打开dǎ kāito open, to turn on, to switch on开玩笑kāi wán xiàoto joke, to make a joke开枪kāi qiāngto fire a gun, to shoot开车kāi chēdrive a car放开fàng kāilet go, release, set free开门kāi ménto open the door, to open for business走开zǒu kāito go away, to leave, get out of the way让开ràng kāito step aside, to get out of the way, to make way分开fēn kāito separate, to part, to split up滚开gǔn kāiget lost, clear off, go away (rude)

Used in

Stories

(2)

Grammar articles

(10)

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This word is part of lesson 9.