Chinese Character Wiki
費

fèi

expenses

Phonosemantic compound. 貝 represents the meaning and 弗 represents the sound.

Components
弗 sound component

弗  Sound component

fú

  

not

貝 meaning component

貝  Meaning component

bèi

  

sea shell

In ancient China shells were used as currency.

Evolution

費 Bronze script Early Spring and Autumn (~700 BC)

Bronze script

Early Spring and Autumn (~700 BC)
費 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

费 (費) 

fèi

expenses, expenditures, fee; to cost; to spend; fee; wasteful; expenses

费 (費) 

Fèi

surname Fei

Most common words with 費
Freq.
Word
Meaning

浪费

to waste

免费

free (of charge)

消费者

consumer

费

to cost

费用

cost

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*pʰ[u]t-s

phj+jH

fèi

squander


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 68.1884% of movies

548th most common character in movies

486th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

12

Simplified

费

Unicode

U+8CBB

Shuowen

“費，散財用也。从貝，弗聲。”


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