壹 meaning and stroke order
One (bankers' anti-fraud numeral)
How to write 壹, stroke by stroke
12 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
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
Meaning of 壹
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- one (banker's anti-fraud numeral)
How 壹 is built
Components of the character.
Radical: 士 (scholar), shared by 11 characters on this site.
How to remember 壹
Picture a scholar 士 standing on top of a lid 冖 that covers a food vessel 豆. It takes many careful strokes to build, and that is the point: 壹 is the hard-to-fake way to write "one."
壹 is the formal, financial form of 一 (yī). It appears on checks, invoices, receipts, contracts and banknotes so that nobody can easily alter the amount. Example: 人民币壹佰元 (rénmínbì yībǎi yuán) means "one hundred yuan RMB."
Common mistake: Learners sometimes use 壹 in everyday writing, like 壹个人, which looks odd. In normal text just write 一. Also, do not confuse 壹 with 壶 (hú, pot), which has a similar top but a different bottom.
Characters that contain 壹
Learning 壹 makes these easier to recognize and write.
Questions about 壹
How many strokes are in 壹?
壹 is written with 12 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 壹 mean?
壹 (yī) means one (bankers' anti-fraud numeral).
How do you pronounce 壹?
壹 is pronounced yī, in the first tone (high and level).
What is the radical of 壹?
The radical of 壹 is 士, which carries the idea of "scholar". Dictionaries list 壹 under this radical.
Why does Chinese need a special way to write one?
The simple numeral 一 can be changed into 二, 三 or 十 with a single stroke. Complex forms like 壹 make it much harder to tamper with amounts written on financial documents.
What are the other bankers' numerals that go with 壹?
The full set is 壹 贰 叁 肆 伍 陆 柒 捌 玖 拾 for one through ten. Larger units are 佰 (hundred), 仟 (thousand) and 万 or 萬 (ten thousand).