蚁 meaning and stroke order
Ant
How to write 蚁, stroke by stroke
9 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 蚁
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- ant
How 蚁 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Insect.
虫 gives the meaning and 义 hints at the sound.
Radical: 虫 (insect), shared by 197 characters on this site.
How to remember 蚁
蚁 is built from 虫 (chóng, insect) on the left and 义 (yì) on the right, which gives the sound. Picture a tiny insect 虫 marching beside 义, and you get yǐ, the ant.
On its own 蚁 is rare in speech. People almost always say 蚂蚁 (mǎyǐ) for ant, and 蚁 appears in compounds like 白蚁 (báiyǐ, termite) and 工蚁 (gōngyǐ, worker ant). Example: 地上有很多蚂蚁。(Dì shang yǒu hěn duō mǎyǐ.) There are many ants on the ground.
Common mistake: Learners often read 蚁 as yì because of the phonetic part 义 (yì), but the correct tone is third tone, yǐ. Also, in 蚂蚁 the first syllable is mǎ, not mā or mà.
Common words with 蚁
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
蚁 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Questions about 蚁
How many strokes are in 蚁?
蚁 is written with 9 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 蚁 mean?
蚁 (yǐ) means ant. A common word with it is 蚂蚁 (mǎyǐ), meaning "ant".
How do you pronounce 蚁?
蚁 is pronounced yǐ, in the third tone (dipping).
What is the radical of 蚁?
The radical of 蚁 is 虫, which carries the idea of "insect". Dictionaries list 蚁 under this radical.
What is the traditional form of 蚁?
The traditional form of 蚁 is 蟻. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau; 蚁 is the simplified form used in mainland China and Singapore.
Can I just say 蚁 to mean ant in conversation?
Not usually. In everyday Mandarin a single 蚁 sounds incomplete, so say 蚂蚁 (mǎyǐ). The single character shows up more in written compounds and technical terms.
Is a termite a kind of ant in Chinese?
The word 白蚁 (báiyǐ) literally means white ant, and that is the normal Chinese name for termites. Biologically they are different insects, but the name groups them by appearance.