纸 zhǐ paper
Made up of [纟 sī silk radical 120, 氏 shì clan name; maiden name radical 83]A measure word to use for this noun: 张 zhāng
Alternative traditional form of character: 紙
Made with 7 strokes.
The modern form has 'silk' combined with a floating water plant, a reference to the production process for paper. The right element is 'shi' which is a rough phonetic.
Ancient small seal form
Related characters
Also uses 纟 sī component: 纺 fǎng (fine woven silk fabric) 纷 fēn (numerous) 纲 gāng (guiding principle) 给 gěi (give) 红 hóng (red) 纪 jì (order) 结 jié (knot) 经 jīng (Classic) 累 lèi (tired) 绿 lù (green) 维 wéi (to preserve) 绪 xù (beginnings) 终 zhōng (end) 组 zǔ (to form)
Also uses 氏 shì component: 婚 hūn (to marry)
Sounds same
止 zhǐ (to stop) 夂 zhǐ (walk slowly)Different tone
只 zhī (one) 之 zhī (him) 知 zhī (to know) 支 zhī (to support) 枝 zhī (branch) 直 zhí (straight) 值 zhí (value) 植 zhí (to plant) 志 zhì (aspiration) 至 zhì (to arrive) 治 zhì (to rule) 致 zhì (to send) 置 zhì (to install)Pronunciation
Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License
Proverbs
纸包不住火 zhǐ bāo bù zhù huǒ The truth can not be concealed纸上谈兵 zhǐ shàng tán bīng An armchair general. Making plans without knowledge of the actualité
洛阳纸贵 Luò yáng zhǐ guì The story is of a book that initially failed to find any interest, when he came to the then capital of Luoyang several respected scholars found it exceptional. The book then became so popular that printers exhausted the supply of paper to print copies of it. It therefore is used to describe a book that is destined to be a sensation.