啬 meaning and stroke order
Miserly, stingy, thrifty
How to write 啬, stroke by stroke
11 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
- 1
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- 10
- 11
Meaning of 啬
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- stingy
How 啬 is built
Components of the character.
Radical: 十 (ten), shared by 23 characters on this site.
How to remember 啬
Picture 土 (earth) with two little marks 丷 on top, sitting over 回, a granary-like box drawn inside another box. Someone keeps grain locked away behind walls within walls and will not share it, so 啬 (sè) means stingy.
啬 rarely stands alone in modern Chinese. You will almost always meet it in 吝啬 (lìnsè, stingy) or 吝啬鬼 (lìnsèguǐ, miser). Example: 他很吝啬，从来不请客。(Tā hěn lìnsè, cónglái bù qǐngkè.) He is very stingy and never treats anyone.
Common mistake: Learners often confuse 啬 with 墙 (qiáng, wall) and 蔷 (qiáng, rose), which contain 啬 as a component but are read qiáng, not sè. Also keep the fourth tone in sè; do not read it like 色 with a different tone or meaning in mind.
Common words with 啬
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
啬 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Characters that contain 啬
Learning 啬 makes these easier to recognize and write.
Questions about 啬
How many strokes are in 啬?
啬 is written with 11 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 啬 mean?
啬 (sè) means miserly, stingy, thrifty. A common word with it is 吝啬 (lìnsè), meaning "stingy; mean; miserly".
How do you pronounce 啬?
啬 is pronounced sè, in the fourth tone (falling).
What is the radical of 啬?
The radical of 啬 is 十, which carries the idea of "ten". Dictionaries list 啬 under this radical.
What is the traditional form of 啬?
The traditional form of 啬 is 嗇. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau; 啬 is the simplified form used in mainland China and Singapore.
Is 啬 the same as 色 since both are pronounced sè?
No. They share the sound sè but are unrelated. 色 means color or appearance, while 啬 means stingy.
Is calling someone 吝啬鬼 rude?
Yes, it is a negative label, a bit like calling someone a cheapskate or Scrooge. Friends may use it jokingly, but it can offend in serious contexts.