馁 (něi) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

馁

něi[nei3]Tone 3

hungry, starving, dispirited

HSK 7

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餒

Guru Deep Dive

English · hungry, starving, dispirited

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Topology:Left-right

Strokes:10

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical (饣) should be narrower and compressed to leave adequate room for the complex right-hand phonetic component (委).

Simplification Logic: The traditional form 餒 uses 飠 on the left, which simplifies to 饣 in modern Simplified Chinese.

1. Meaning

hungry, starving, dispirited

(of fish) putrid

AdjectiveLiteraryBound morpheme#emotions#states of being#literary vocabulary

Sample Usage

士气沮馁
shì qì jǔ něi
morale is depressed and dispirited
自馁
zì něi
lose heart; cowardice

2. Sound

/[neɪ̯²¹⁴]/Tone: 214

馁

něinei3

ˇ(214)

=něi

Build the syllable

Step-by-step blending

nei

Tone mark placement: Tone mark sits on "e" per main-vowel priority (a > e > o; in -iu/-ui the mark takes the second vowel).

Initial Consonant

Type: Alveolar Nasal

Sounds like: n sound as in 'no'

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: Air passes completely through nose.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Tongue tip touches the alveolar ridge behind the upper front teeth while air passes through the nasal cavity.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -e vowel group

Sounds like: -ei rhymes with 'ay' in 'day'

Mouth Shape Guide: Pronounce as standalone vowel 'ay'.

Common Learner Trap: Keep vowel quality steady across all 4 tone contours.

Tone

T3 (214)

2 → 1 → 4 (214)

3rd Tone (Low-Dipping)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Tone 3 dips low like a skeptical 'Really?' in English, dropping in pitch before curving upward.

Sandhi: When followed by another Tone 3 syllable, něi changes to a Tone 2 (rising 35) sound.

👂

Listening trap: Confusing the dipping Tone 3 with Tone 4, leading to mispronunciation as nèi.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Trace a checkmark in the air: dip down from a medium pitch to a low dip, then rise slightly upward.

3. Writing

Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 10 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical (饣) should be narrower and compressed to leave adequate room for the complex right-hand phonetic component (委).

Simplification Logic: The traditional form 餒 uses 飠 on the left, which simplifies to 饣 in modern Simplified Chinese.

4. Components

Radical 饣 · Food Radical (food, eating, hunger)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 饣 (Indicates the core semantic domain of hunger and eating.)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 委 (original sound: wěi / něi)

The food radical (饣) combines with the phonetic component for crooked or collapsing (委) to depict someone whose energy is bent and hollowed out from lack of food.

饣 Food or hunger semantic clue
委 Phonetic and conceptual clue for sagging or yielding

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

7· Phonetic Root: 妥 (tuǒ)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Combined from the food classifier (饠/饣) representing nourishment and 委 representing a drooping posture, indicating a person weakened by starvation.

Semantic Evolution: Originally referred strictly to physical starvation or spoiled fish, but broadened over time to describe mental exhaustion and loss of courage (dispiritedness).

Often encountered in literary idioms and classical prose detailing military campaigns or hardships.

6. Sinosphere

🇻🇳

Sino-Vietnamese

nỏa

The Sino-Vietnamese reading maps to tone variations in classical texts.

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ダイ (dai)

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

뇌

Sound Shift Bridge: Shared root origins across East Asian literary vocabulary retain the nasal initial and vowel structure.

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

Imagine walking through a valley with **no food** (饣) left, until your posture **curves and sags** (委) completely in despair, leaving you utterly **starved and dispirited** (něi).

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

妥

tuǒsuitable, adequate, ready, settledPhonetic Core (声旁)

浽

suīsee 浽溦[sui1 wei1]+ 氵 (water)

綏

+ 糹 (silk)

绥

suíto pacify; Taiwan pr. [sui1]+ 纟 (silk)

Explore this family →

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

内(nèi)

内 means 'inside' and lacks the food radical entirely.

委(wěi)

委 is the component inside that gives it its sound, but without 饣 it does not inherently mean hunger.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

听到这个坏消息后，大家的士气都有些沮[___]。

Clue: něi

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the third tone něi with nèi (fourth tone) or misapplying it as a standalone conversational verb when it is predominantly a literary bound form.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: When you see 馁 with the food radical and 委, what literary meanings should instantly come to mind?

Production: How do you write the character for 'starving/dispirited' pronounced něi using the food radical?

馁něihungry, starving, dispirited

Speed:

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