Kilo Lingo

(zhī) - classical possessive or linking particle in Mandarin

zhī

Traditional: 之

Line drawing of 之
Coloured illustration of 之
HSK 5
#412 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

classical possessive or linking particle

Word origin

之 (zhī) is a classical possessive and linking particle. Its early graph shows 止 (zhǐ, 'foot') above a baseline, depicting setting out for a place; it was then borrowed for its grammatical functions.

Origin
ideograph
Root
之 (zhī), 止 (foot) over a baseline; grammatical use is a borrowing

Stroke order

Stroke order for 之

Examples

yōuxiù

He is one of the best.

This is what I love.

He is one of my friends.

He is my friend.

One third of the students did not come.

之 (zhī) - classical possessive or linking particle.

Appears in 7 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 之.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 9.