贝 bèi shell; precious; cowrie shell
Alternative traditional form of character: 貝
Made with 4 strokes.
Picture of a cowrie shell which was in ancient times used as a currency, it has thus become associated with anything expensive
Ancient small seal form 
Different tone
杯 bēi (cup) ; 北 běi (north)Radical
Index 154 used in: 厕 cè (toilet) ; 贵 guì (precious) ; 贫 pín (poor) ; 赏 shǎng (to hand down) ; 贴 tiē (to stick) ; 员 yuán (person) ; 则 zé (conjunction used to express contrast with a previous sentence or clause) ; 贞 zhēn (chaste)
Stroke order for character 贝, kindly provided under Wikimedia creative commons license ➚