Kilo Lingo

(zé) - duty, responsibility, blame in Mandarin

Traditional: 责

Line drawing of 责
Coloured illustration of 责
#5307 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

duty, responsibility, blame

Word origin

A phono-semantic character built over 贝 (bèi, cowrie shell, standing for money or debt), with a phonetic element above. Demanding payment of a debt gave the sense of duty, responsibility and blame.

Origin
phono-semantic
Root
朿 (cì, phonetic) + 贝 (bèi, cowrie, money)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 责

Examples

This is my responsibility.

He is in charge of arranging the meeting.

Do not blame her.

He fulfilled his duty as a father.

责 (zé) means duty or to blame, pairing with 负 to form 负责 (fùzé, be responsible for).

Appears in 2 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 责.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 107.