Chinese Character Wiki
美

měi

beautiful

Pictograph of a person with ornamental headwar resembling sheep horns.

Components
羊 iconic component

羊  Iconic component

yáng

  

sheep

Depicts ornamental headwear resembling sheep horns.

大 iconic component

大  Iconic component

dà, dài

  

big

Used here as a pictograph of a person.

Evolution

美 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
美 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
美 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
美 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
美 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

美  

měi

beautiful, pretty; pleasing; beautiful; very satisfactory; good; to beautify; to be pleased with oneself

美  

Měi

the Americas; abbr. for 美洲[Měi​zhōu]; USA; abbr. for 美國|美国[Měi​guó]

Most common words with 美
Freq.
Word
Meaning

美国

USA

美

good

美元

US dollar

完美

perfect

美丽

beautiful

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

羹

Sound component in 2 characters (0 verified)

鎂 镁

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[m]rəjʔ

mijX

měi

beautiful


Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 93.1924% of movies

180th most common character in movies

151st most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+7F8E

Shuowen

“美，甘也。从羊，从大。”


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