Meaning of 市
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- market
- city
- municipality (administrative unit)
- (literary) to trade; to buy and sell goods
How to use 市
市 rarely stands alone in speech. It usually appears in compounds like 市场 (shìchǎng, market), 超市 (chāoshì, supermarket) and 城市 (chéngshì, city), or after a place name to mean a city as an administrative unit. Example: 我住在北京市。(Wǒ zhù zài Běijīng shì.) I live in Beijing municipality.
Picture 市 (shì) as a market stall: the dot and line on top are a sign hanging over the stand, and the 巾 (jīn, cloth) shape below is cloth for sale. Where people gather to trade goods, a city grows.
Common mistake: Learners often confuse 市 (shì) with 巿 (fú), which has a single vertical stroke running straight through from top to bottom. In 市 the top is a separate dot and horizontal line, and the vertical stroke starts below them. Also do not mix up the tone with 是 (shì) or 事 (shì), which sound the same but mean very different things.
市 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.
市 shì · market · 5 strokes
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Related words
Words that share a character with 市.
| 市长 | shìzhǎng | mayor |
| 超市 | chāoshì | supermarket (abbr. for 超級市場|超级市场[chao1 ji2 shi4 chang3]) |
| 城市 | chéngshì | city; town |
| 市场 | shìchǎng | marketplace; market; bazaar; (economics) market |
| 市区 | shìqū | urban district; downtown |
| 市民 | shìmín | city resident; townspeople |
| 都市 | dūshì | city; metropolis |
| 上市 | shàngshì | to hit the market (of a new product); to float (a company on the stock market) |
| 股市 | gǔshì | stock market |
| 夜市 | yèshì | night market |
| 菜市场 | càishìchǎng | food market |
| 市场经济 | shìchǎng jīngjì | market economy |
Questions about 市
What does 市 mean?
市 (shì) means "market; city" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 市?
市 is made of 1 character: 市 (5 strokes). That is 5 strokes in total.
Is 市 an HSK word?
Yes. 市 is on the HSK 2 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
What is the difference between 市 and 城市?
城市 (chéngshì) is the everyday word for a city in general, as in 大城市 (dà chéngshì, big city). 市 on its own is more formal or administrative and usually attaches to a name, like 上海市 (Shànghǎi shì).
How do you say going to the market or supermarket in Chinese?
You can say 去市场 (qù shìchǎng) for a market or 去超市 (qù chāoshì) for a supermarket. For example, 我去超市买东西。(Wǒ qù chāoshì mǎi dōngxi.) I am going to the supermarket to buy things.