Meaning of 米
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- uncooked rice
- meter (unit of length)
- (slang) Chinese yuan
- surname Mi
How to use 米
On its own, 米 (mǐ) usually means uncooked rice or the meter as a unit of length. For rice you are actually eating, people say 米饭 (mǐfàn), and for measurements it appears in words like 厘米 (límǐ) centimeter. Example: 他身高一米八。(Tā shēngāo yī mǐ bā.) He is 1.8 meters tall.
米 (mǐ) looks like a stalk with grains scattered around a central cross, like rice grains spilling out in every direction. Picture a handful of rice thrown onto a table, with grains flying up, down, left and right.
Common mistake: Learners often say 我吃米 (wǒ chī mǐ) for eating rice, but cooked rice at the table is 米饭 (mǐfàn) or just 饭 (fàn). Also keep the third tone in mǐ and do not confuse it with 来 (lái), which has an extra horizontal stroke on top.
米 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.
米 mǐ · uncooked rice · 6 strokes
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Related words
Words that share a character with 米.
Questions about 米
What does 米 mean?
米 (mǐ) means "uncooked rice; meter (unit of length)" and is used as a measure word and noun.
How do you write 米?
米 is made of 1 character: 米 (6 strokes). That is 6 strokes in total.
Is 米 an HSK word?
Yes. 米 is on the HSK 2 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
Why does 米 mean both rice and meter?
The meter sense came from using 米 to sound out the French word mètre, because the pronunciation mǐ is close. The rice meaning is the original one, and the two senses are unrelated in meaning.
What does 米 mean in slang?
In informal speech and online, 米 can mean Chinese yuan, as in money. You might see something like 五百米 for 500 yuan in casual chat, but it is not used in formal writing.