美 měi beautiful
Made up of [羊 yáng sheep; goat radical 123, 大 dà big; great; large; very radical 37]Note
Represents a combination of 'large' and 'sheep' possibly aluding to a peaceful dispositionNumber of strokes: 9
Related characters
Also uses 羊 yáng component: 群 qún (group) 鲜 xiān (fresh)
Also uses 大 dà component: 夫 fū (husband) 莫 mò (do not) 奇 qí (strange) 庆 qìng (celebrate) 失 shī (to lose) 太 tài (too) 天 tiān (sky) 头 tóu (head) 央 yāng (center) 夷 yí (barbarians)
Sounds same
每 měi (each)Different tone
没 méi (have not) 妹 mèi (younger sister)Pronunciation
Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License
Stroke order for character 美, kindly provided under Wikimedia creative commons license ➚
Proverbs
十全十美 shí quán shí měi Perfection; faultless黄粱美梦 huáng liáng měi mèng A fanciful day dream. The story is of a man who took a brief nap while his host was cooking a bowl of millet. He dreamed of becoming married to a beautiful wife and immensely rich and living to a great age. When he woke up the millet was cooked but he found he was still poor.