Kilo Lingo

面

miàn

Traditional: 面

#1800 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

face, surface, side, noodles, flour

Word origin

Originally a pictograph of a face framed by an outline, later extended to mean surface, side, and aspect, and when written for the food sense it covers flour and noodles.

Origin
pictograph
Root
目 (mù, eye) within a framing outline of the face

Stroke order

Stroke order for 面

面

Examples

。

We finally met face to face.

滑huá。

The surface of the table is very smooth.

碗wǎn。

I had a bowl of noodles at noon.

。

This issue has two sides.

。

She stood in front of the house.

面 (miàn) is a broad noun covering face, surface, side, and aspect, and it also means flour and noodles (a sense once written 麵 in traditional script). The right reading is almost always clear from context.

Appears in 10 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 面.

里面lǐ miàninside, interior, within外面wài miànoutside, exterior, outdoors上面shàng miànabove, on top, on the surface后面hòu miànbehind, at the back下面xià miànbelow, under, beneath面前miàn qiánin front of, before (someone's face)见面jiàn miànto meet (in person)前面qián miànfront, ahead, in front面对miàn duìto face, to confront方面fāng miànaspect, side, respect

Used in

Grammar articles

(11)

Add to review queue

Track this word in your spaced-repetition queue and be tested on it at the right interval.

Go to my review queue

This word is part of lesson 36.