Chinese Character Wiki
微

wēi

small

Original meaning: 

go out and hide

Phonosemantic compound. 彳 represents the meaning and 𢼸 represents the sound. Based on the original meaning "go out and hide". The meaning later shifted to "conceal" and "tiny".

Components
彳 meaning component

彳  Meaning component

chì

  

walk

彳 is a component form of 行.

𢼸 sound component

𢼸  Sound component

wēi

  

tiny, small

Evolution

微 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
微 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
微 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

微  

wēi

small, prefix micro-, trifling; tiny; miniature; slightly; profound; abtruse; to decline; one millionth part of; micro-; Taiwan pr. [wéi]

微  

Wēi

surname Wei; ancient Chinese state near present day Chongqing; Taiwan pr. [Wéi]

Most common words with 微
Freq.
Word
Meaning

微

tiny

微笑

smile

稍微

a little bit

轻微

slight

微微

slight

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

黴

Sound component in 2 characters (0 verified)

黴 薇

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*məj

mj+j

wēi

small


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 38.1067% of movies

1049th most common character in movies

653rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

13

Unicode

U+5FAE

Shuowen

“微，隱行也。从彳，聲。《春秋傳》曰：‘白公其徒微之。’”


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