Kilo Lingo

(xìng) - nature, quality, sex, -ness (suffix) in Mandarin

xìng

Traditional: 性

Line drawing of 性
Coloured illustration of 性
#1893 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

nature, quality, sex, -ness (suffix)

Word origin

A phono-semantic compound of 忄(the heart radical) with 生 (shēng, to be born, also phonetic), referring to one's inborn nature.

Origin
phono-semantic
Root
忄(heart radical) + 生 (shēng, to be born, phonetic)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 性

Examples

The importance of this issue is very high.

wēn

His nature is very gentle.

tián

Please fill in your sex.

cáiwěn

This material has very strong stability.

Safety is what we care about most.

性 (xìng) means nature or inborn quality, and also denotes sex or gender. As a productive suffix it forms abstract nouns like 重要性 (importance) and 可能性 (possibility), much like English -ness or -ity.

Where this fits

Appears in 3 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 性.

Used in

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Mandarin · Free printables

性: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "性" (nature, quality, sex, -ness (suffix)): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 38.