肌 meaning and stroke order
Flesh, skin; muscle, tissue; meat on bones
How to write 肌, stroke by stroke
6 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
Meaning of 肌
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- (bound form) flesh; muscle
How 肌 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Flesh.
⺼ gives the meaning and 几 hints at the sound.
Radical: ⺼ (meat), shared by 176 characters on this site.
How to remember 肌
肌 combines the flesh radical ⺼ on the left with 几 (jī) on the right, which gives the sound. Picture flesh, the muscle part of the body, that sounds like 几 (jī).
肌 is a bound form, so it almost always appears inside words like 肌肉 (jīròu, muscle), 肌肤 (jīfū, skin), and 腹肌 (fùjī, abs). Example: 他每天去健身房练腹肌。(Tā měitiān qù jiànshēnfáng liàn fùjī.) He goes to the gym every day to train his abs.
Common mistake: Learners sometimes write the left side as 月 (moon) and think of the moon, but here ⺼ means flesh, and the right side is 几, not 九 or 凡. Also, 肌 is first tone jī, while 几 meaning "how many" is usually third tone jǐ.
Common words with 肌
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
肌 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Questions about 肌
How many strokes are in 肌?
肌 is written with 6 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 肌 mean?
肌 (jī) means flesh, skin; muscle, tissue; meat on bones. A common word with it is 肌肉 (jīròu), meaning "muscle; flesh".
How do you pronounce 肌?
肌 is pronounced jī, in the first tone (high and level).
What is the radical of 肌?
The radical of 肌 is ⺼, which carries the idea of "meat". Dictionaries list 肌 under this radical.
Is 肌 on the HSK exam?
Yes. 肌 is part of the HSK 5 character list in the HSK 3.0 standard.
Can I use 肌 by itself to mean muscle?
Not usually. In everyday speech you say 肌肉 (jīròu) for muscle. 肌 alone shows up mainly as part of compound words such as 胸肌 (xiōngjī, pecs).
What is the difference between 肌肉 and 肌肤?
肌肉 (jīròu) means muscle, the tissue that moves the body. 肌肤 (jīfū) means skin, and it often appears in beauty and skincare contexts, such as 保护肌肤 (bǎohù jīfū, protect your skin).