miàn face; side; surface

Made up of [ wéi proud; enclosure; upright radical 31, eye radical 109]
Made with 9 strokes.
Suggests a picture of a mask covering the face with one eye in the middle

Related characters


Also uses wéi component: (hard) guó (country) ; huí (to circle) ; (four) ; yuán (park) ; zhōng (centre)
Also uses component: (virtue) dùn (shield) ; jīng (eye) ; kàn (look) ; mào (to emit) ; pàn (to hope for) ; suàn (calculate) ; xiāng (each other) ; zhí (straight) ; (from)

Different tone

mián (roof) ; miǎn (to escape)

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Pronunciation

Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License

stroke order for 面
Stroke order for character 面, kindly provided under Wikimedia creative commons license

Proverbs

四面楚歌 sì miàn chǔ gē Ambushed from all sides. Hopeless situation. In the battle of Gaixia troops surrounding the enemy sang songs of home, breaking their spirit. From the classic Shi Ji from 2,200 years ago. After the end of the Qin dynasty the Han general used this tactic against of the Chu kingdom. The Chu songs persuaded the surrounded Chu forces that the Han must have overrun much of the Chu kingdom already
网开一面 wǎng kāi yī miàn To give someone a chance of escape