Meaning of 子
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- noun suffix, as in 椅子[yi3 zi5] "chair"
- son
- child
- seed
- egg
- small thing
- 1st earthly branch: 11 p.m.–1 a.m., midnight, 11th solar month (7th December to 5th January), year of the rat
- viscount, fourth of five orders of nobility 五等爵位[wu3 deng3 jue2 wei4]
- ancient Chinese compass point: 0° (north)
How to use 子
As a suffix, 子 is read in the neutral tone (zi) and turns many words into everyday nouns, especially objects, like 桌子 (zhuōzi) table and 杯子 (bēizi) cup. With its full tone zǐ, it means child or seed in words like 子女 (zǐnǚ) children. Example: 这个杯子很大。(Zhège bēizi hěn dà.) This cup is big.
子 looks like a baby wrapped in a blanket, with a round head on top and arms stretched out to the sides. That little child gives the basic meaning, son or child, zǐ.
Common mistake: Learners often confuse 子 with 了 (le), which lacks the horizontal stroke across the middle. Another common slip is saying the suffix with a full third tone, as in zǐ, when 椅子 should be yǐzi with a light, unstressed zi.
子 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
子 zi · noun suffix · 3 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
Related words
Words that share a character with 子.
Questions about 子
What does 子 mean?
子 (zi) means "noun suffix, as in 椅子[yi3 zi5] "chair"" and is used as a suffix.
How do you write 子?
子 is made of 1 character: 子 (3 strokes). That is 3 strokes in total.
Is 子 an HSK word?
Yes. 子 is on the HSK 1 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
Does adding 子 change the meaning of a word?
Usually it just makes a single syllable into a standard noun, so 桌 becomes 桌子 with the same meaning. Sometimes the meaning shifts, for example 儿子 (érzi) means son, not simply child.
Why is 子 linked to the rat and midnight?
子 is the first of the twelve earthly branches, an old system for counting time. In that system it stands for the hours from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. and for the year of the rat, as in 子时 (zǐshí) midnight hours.