# 隹



## altchinesisch

What does 隹 mean and what is its pronunciation? I cannot find it in any of my Chinese dictionaries, including Chinese-German and Chinese-English ones.


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## VeronikaSummer

altchinesisch said:


> What does 隹 mean and what is its pronunciation? I cannot find it in any of my Chinese dictionaries, including Chinese-German and Chinese-English ones.


隹 - Wiktionary


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## altchinesisch

Thank you so much!
I guess this character has fallen out of use or else at least some of my dictionaries (Oxford, Collins, Chinesisch-Deutsches Universalwörterbuch) would have mentioned it.
Can any of the Chinese members tell me if they have ever encountered this character?


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## fyl

Yes, it's no longer used in modern Chinese (at least very rare). In life it mostly appears as a radical of characters (e.g. in many characters related to it's meaning "bird with short tail").
For those who study the Chinese language (e.g. characters evolving, calligraphy, literature, ancient stuffs, and maybe some good school teachers), they probably know this character.
But for ordinary public, I believe most people don't know how to pronounce it.
It can be found in any Chinese-Chinese dictionary for native speakers, and it's also in the official 通用规范汉字表 (which contains 8105 characters). So on the other hand it's not extremely rare.


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## Skatinginbc

I expect any Chinese student that has successfully finished junior high school should know that 隹 has something to do with "bird".


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## SuperXW

Skatinginbc said:


> I expect any Chinese student that has successfully finished junior high school should know that 隹 has something to do with "bird".


I would say your expectation is too high.
It's already enough for me not to mess it up with 住 or 佳. Why would every senior high student needs to know it has something to do with bird?
I, on the contrary, expect any modern name of a bird should has something to do with the character 鸟/羽 etc.


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## Skatinginbc

The grapheme appears in such bird names as 雀，雁，雉，雕，and雞，all being junior-high school level vocabulary.  If the students don't have enough intelligence to deduce that the radical 隹 has something to do with bird, then either they have failed the school, or the school has failed them. 

Birds (雥) roosting on a tree (木) is called 雧 (simplified as 集)。The difference between 雙 "double" and 隻 "singular" is that the former has two birds while the latter has only one.....These are etymological knowledge that one acquires or automatically figures out during their middle school education.


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## SuperXW

Good points. I cannot rebut, and will take my words back...
When the characters are simplified, some roots are missing, such as 雞: 鸡; 隻: 只; 雙: 双.


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## retrogradedwithwind

Given the reality of high school students in mainland, I conclude that a student has a very high possibility to learn about the meaning of 隹 either by teaching from their teacher or by consulting a dictionary. After all it's a funny character, and a student are likely to look it up.

But I think there are as well many students knowing nothing about it or totally forgetting the knowledge about it.


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## Youngfun

I can't speak about high school education in China. I only studied elementary-school Chinese through books from Mainland China. But I think we aren't taught things like etymology. 
So I didn't know 隹 was a single standalone character, but I immediately associated it with 雀. 
People who haven't studied character etymology don't think about 雀，雁，雉，雕，and 雞 as characters with the same radical, but we learn them separately without being conscious of any link among them.
And I didn't know 雕 had anything to do with bird...
Besides, while 雞 is the standard character in Taiwan, 鷄 is more common in Hong Kong and also the standard traditional character in Mainland China


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## fyl

隹 is not as obvious/common as 亻、忄、氵、钅、刂、竹、艹、犭、囗、辶、礻、衤、饣、扌、灬 etc. Without 雞、隻、雙, I don't think 隹 will be specially explained in all classrooms like other radicals.

In 雀, the shape has changed significantly (at least I didn't know 隹 is a part of 雀 for a long time). For 雉、集、雏、雅, knowledge is needed to see the link to birds. So to mainland students, the easiest clues are only 雕, 雁, 隼, 雎. When they are mixed with 唯, 难, 雅, 隽, etc over many years of schooling, maybe few people can figure out what 隹 is. Probably the only ones are those who looked up in a dictionary or had a nice teacher having explained it.

In fact, there are students who cannot even distinguish 礻and 衤. One can't imagine how "any" student does at school..
For knowledge that is not so basic, the scenario is worse. I think there are many people who don't know about things like 形声字. There are also many people don't know 阝 on the left side and right side are two radicals. They just treat 阝 as a common radical, and have no idea with the meaning. The same for the bottom of 忝. Not many people know it's a variant of 心. A dictionary (汉典) even says the 部首 of 忝 is 小. 隹 is just another similar thing.


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## SuperXW

fyl said:


> In 雀, the shape has changed significantly (at least I didn't know 隹 is a part of 雀 for a long time). For 雉、集、雏、雅, knowledge is needed to see the link to birds. So to mainland students, the easiest clues are only 雕, 雁, 隼, 雎. When they are mixed with 唯, 难, 雅, 隽, etc over many years of schooling, maybe few people can figure out what 隹 is. Probably the only ones are those who looked up in a dictionary or had a nice teacher having explained it.


Ah, that's why I can't associate it with birds!


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## Skatinginbc

Chinese characters become easier to learn if one can make a story out of their components.  For example,
雀 = 小 "little" + 隹 "bird"

雅 = 牙 "making ŋa-ŋa sounds (onomatopoeia as in 牙牙學語)" + 隹 "bird" = a bush crow (i.e., 楚烏也; 此楚非荆楚之楚也) noted for its ga-ga cry.

難 = 歎 "exclamation" + 隹 "bird" = a rare bird whose saliva can turn into pearls (令人歎為觀止的難見之鳥 ==> 難易的難)

隽/雋 = 倒弓 "bow-shaped" + 隹 "bird" = the plump, fatty portion of a bird (鳥肥也 ==> superior, best, most delicious)


Youngfun said:


> I didn't know 隹 was a single standalone character, but I immediately associated it with 雀.


immediately associate 隹 with 雀 ==> 隹 has something to do with "bird" (e.g., 雀).  See?  That was exactly my point.


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