瘠 meaning and stroke order
Thin, emaciated; barren
How to write 瘠, stroke by stroke
15 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
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Meaning of 瘠
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- barren
- lean
How 瘠 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Sickness.
疒 gives the meaning and 脊 hints at the sound.
Radical: 疒 (sickness), shared by 127 characters on this site.
How to remember 瘠
瘠 puts 脊 (jǐ, spine) inside the sickness radical 疒. Picture someone so sick and thin that you can see their spine. That gives both the sound and the meaning of lean or barren.
Today 瘠 is mostly used for land that is poor and infertile, almost always in the word 贫瘠 (pínjí). It is a written, somewhat formal character. Example: 这里的土地很贫瘠。(Zhèlǐ de tǔdì hěn pínjí.) The land here is very barren.
Common mistake: Learners often read 瘠 as jǐ because its phonetic part 脊 is pronounced jǐ. The correct reading of 瘠 is second tone, jí.
Common words with 瘠
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 贫瘠 | pínjí | barren; infertile |
Questions about 瘠
How many strokes are in 瘠?
瘠 is written with 15 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 瘠 mean?
瘠 (jí) means thin, emaciated; barren. A common word with it is 贫瘠 (pínjí), meaning "barren; infertile".
How do you pronounce 瘠?
瘠 is pronounced jí, in the second tone (rising).
What is the radical of 瘠?
The radical of 瘠 is 疒, which carries the idea of "sickness". Dictionaries list 瘠 under this radical.
What is the opposite of 贫瘠?
The usual opposite is 肥沃 (féiwò), fertile. You will often see the two contrasted when describing soil or farmland.
Can 瘠 be used to describe a thin person?
In classical or literary Chinese it can mean emaciated. In modern speech people say 瘦 (shòu) for a thin person, and 瘠 is mostly kept for barren land, sometimes used figuratively, as in a 贫瘠 imagination.