鼷 (xī) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

鼷

xī[xi1]Tone 1

used in mouse / small rodent (鼷鼠)

Guru Deep Dive

English · used in mouse / small rodent (鼷鼠)

Cached lesson

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Topology:Left-right

Strokes:21

Writing Balance Rule: The left side (鼠) takes up about three-fifths of the width, while the right side (圭) takes the remaining two-fifths. Keep all horizontal lines evenly spaced and compact to prevent the character from looking overly cluttered.

1. Meaning

small mouse, rodent

found almost exclusively in the compound 鼷鼠 (xīshǔ), referring to a small species of mouse or rat

Noun / Bound FormLiterary / SpecializedBound morpheme#animals#nature#rodents

Sample Usage

鼷鼠
xī shǔ
house mouse / small rodent
鼷鼠饮河，不竭其腹
xī shǔ yǐn hé, bù jié qí fù
a tiny mouse drinks from the river, but cannot exhaust its belly (idiom meaning our individual intake is small compared to vast resources)

2. Sound

/[ɕi˥]/Tone: 55

鼷

xīxi1

¯(55)

=xī

Build the syllable

Step-by-step blending

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

Initial Consonant

Type: Alveolo-Palatal Fricative

Sounds like: sh sound near the teeth with tongue blade raised (similar to German ch in ich)

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: Hissing friction with lips stretched wide in a smile.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Tongue blade is raised close to the hard palate, air flows smoothly without a burst.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -i vowel group

Sounds like: ee sound as in see

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

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

Tone

T1 (55)

5 → 5 (55)

1st Tone (High-Flat)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Maintains a steady high pitch level matching a flat musical drone.

👂

Listening trap: Do not confuse the soft alveolo-palatal 'x-' with the retroflex 'sh-' or dental 's-'. It sounds much closer to the 'h' in 'huge' or the 'si' in 'sit' if pronounced with the tongue blade raised.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Tone 1 is a high, flat musical note, like holding a steady high pitch on a piano. Imagine holding a high singing note at the very top of your vocal range.

3. Writing

Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 21 strokes

4. Components

Radical 鼠 · Rat / Mouse Radical (rat, mouse, rodent)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 鼠 (Indicates the general category of animal (a rat or mouse).)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 圭 (original sound: guī / xī sound evolution in ancient Chinese rhymes.)

The character combines the semantic indicator for rat/mouse (鼠) on the left with the phonetic component '圭' (guī) on the right, pointing to both its classification as a rodent and its pronunciation.

鼠 Left component indicating a rodent
圭 Right component providing the phonetic cue

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

7· Phonetic Root: 奚 (xī)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Formed by combining the pictographic base of a mouse (鼠) showing its head, body, and tail, with a phonetic sound marker (圭) to specify a particular rare or small variety of rodent.

Semantic Evolution: Over centuries, '鼷' narrowed from general rodent terminology down to a specific literary term, surviving almost exclusively in the binomial compound 鼷鼠 (xīshǔ).

Classical texts often use 鼷鼠 to contrast tiny creatures against massive natural landmarks.

6. Sinosphere

🇻🇳

Sino-Vietnamese

khê

High level tone in Mandarin maps to flat level tones in Sino-Vietnamese.

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ケイ

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

계

Sound Shift Bridge: The phonetic component 圭 often lends '-ei' or '-i' sounds in various historical Chinese and borrowing layers.

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

Imagine a tiny mouse (鼠) wearing a jade scepter (圭) as a crown, scurrying around and squeaking 'Xī! Xī!' because it is so small.

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

奚

xīsurname Xi; (literary) what?Phonetic Core (声旁)

溪

xīvariant of 溪[xi1]+ 氵 (water)

徯

xīfootpath; wait for+ 彳 (stepping)

谿

+ 谷 (valley)

Explore this family →

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

鼠(shǔ)

鼠 is the standalone word for rat/mouse (13 strokes), whereas 鼷 adds the right-hand phonetic component 圭 for a complex literary term (21 strokes).

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

这种小动物通常被称为[___]鼠。

Clue: xī

Common Learner Pitfall

Mistaking its high stroke count (21 strokes) for a common everyday word; remember it is a bound literary character mainly used alongside 鼠.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: What animal does 鼷 refer to when paired with 鼠 (鼷鼠)?

Production: How do you write the literary character for a small rodent pronounced xī, which contains the rat radical on the left?

鼷xīused in mouse / small rodent (鼷鼠)

Speed:

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