艾 (ài): Chinese mugwort or wormwood, moxa, to stop or cut short

艾 (ài) is a Chinese character meaning “chinese mugwort or wormwood.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 艹 (semantic) and 乂 (phonetic). It ranks #1283 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 艾 grass. Its radical form 艹 (grass) appears in many related characters such as 花 (huā, flower), 茶 (chá, tea), 菜 (cài, vegetable, dish).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. Chinese mugwort or wormwood
  2. moxa
  3. to stop or cut short

Etymology & Origin

艾

pictophoneticgrass

Decomposition: ⿱艹乂 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5

Practice writing 艾 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
艾迪ài díEddie (name)
艾滋病nounài zī bìng(loanword) AIDS
艾滋nounài zī(loanword) AIDS
艾萨克proper-nounài sà kèIsaac (name)
布宜诺斯艾利斯proper-nounbù yí nuò sī ài lì sīBuenos Aires, capital of Argentina
艾滋病毒nounài zī bìng dúhuman immune deficiency virus (HIV)
艾森豪威尔proper-nounài sēn háo wēi ěrDwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), US army general and politician, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War...
艾哈迈德proper-nounài hǎ mài déAhmed (name)
艾塔ài tǎeta (Greek letter Η, η)
艾菲尔铁塔proper-nounài fēi ěr tiě tǎ(Tw) Eiffel Tower
艾尔米塔什ài ěr mǐ tǎ shíErmitazh or Hermitage museum in St Peterburg
艾迪生proper-nounài dí shēngAddison (name)
艾萨克·牛顿ài sà kè · niú dùnSir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), British mathematician and physicist
艾伯塔proper-nounài bó tǎAlberta province of Canada, capital Edmonton 埃德蒙頓|埃德蒙顿
艾奇逊proper-nounài qí xùnAtchison or Acheson (name)
79
Total compounds
77
As first character
10
As last character
13
As middle character

艾 appears in 79 compound words: 77 as the first character, 10 as the last, and 13 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 艾 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

莉lì
0.61531,774 co-occurrences
坦tǎn
0.52330 co-occurrences
蜜mì
0.5034,506 co-occurrences
滋zī
0.4864,219 co-occurrences
迈mài
0.4793,550 co-occurrences
伦lún
0.4767,902 co-occurrences
克kè
0.47537,244 co-occurrences
迪dí
0.46110,782 co-occurrences
瑞ruì
0.4398,458 co-occurrences
斯sī
0.43847,369 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (7)

艾德蒙顿ÀidéméngdùnHSK 7+

(chiefly Taiwan) Edmonton (the capital city of Alberta, Canada)

艾哈迈德ÀihāmàidéHSK 7+

a transliteration of the Arabic male given name and surname أَحْمَد (ʔaḥmad), Ahmad

艾滋病毒àizī bìngdúHSK 7+

HIV (virus)

noun
方兴未艾fāngxīngwèi'àiHSK 7+

to be ascendant or still growing

phrase
期期艾艾qīqī'ài'àiHSK 7+

stammering

phrase
自怨自艾zìyuànzìyìHSK 7+

to be full of remorse and self-reproach

phrase

Showing 6 of 7 idioms containing 艾.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

艾字由5笔画组成,结构很巧妙。

ài zì yóu bǐ huà zǔ chéng , jié gòu hěn qiǎo miào .

The character "艾" consists of five strokes and has a very clever structure.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

艾司摩尔技术报喜!台积盘后交易首破2000...

ài sī mó ěr jì shù bào xǐ ! tái jī pán hòu jiāo yì shǒu pò 2 0 0 0 . . .

Esmore Technology News! TSMC's after-hours trading broke 2000 for the first time...

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

台积电受益最大!艾司摩尔EUV效能进化 技术全解密

tái jī diàn shòu yì zuì dà ! ài sī mó ěr E U V xiào néng jìn huà jì shù quán jiě mì

TSMC benefits the most! Esmore EUV Performance Evolution Technology Full Decryption

工商時報Feb 2026

艾司摩尔突破EUV光源瓶颈 功率提升至千瓦...

ài sī mó ěr tū pò E U V guāng yuán píng jǐng gōng lǜ tí shēng zhì qiān wǎ . . .

Esmore broke through the bottleneck of EUV light sources and increased power to kilowatts...

大紀元 | 大紀元新聞網Feb 2026

神韵德州麦克艾伦满场 市长赞震撼人心

shén yùn dé zhōu mài kè ài lún mǎn chǎng shì cháng zàn zhèn hàn rén xīn

Shen Yun Texas McAllen was full of mayors' praises

Tatoeba

艾德蒙多认为瓦利德是书呆子。

ài dé mēng duō rènwéi Wǎlì dé shì shūdāizi.

Edmundo thought of Walid as a nerd.

Tatoeba

艾德蒙多躲在浴室的角落。

ài dé mēng duō duǒ zài yùshì de jiǎoluò.

Edmundo hid in the back corner of the bathroom.

Tatoeba

艾力士有多少辆车?

ài lìshì yǒu duōshao liàng chē?

How many cars does Alex have?

Tatoeba

艾马提,我们需要更多肉!

ài mǎ tí, wǒmen xūyào gèng duōròu!

Emet, we need more meat!

Tatoeba

艾美莉学了点儿罗马尼亚语。

ài měi lì xué le diǎnr Luómǎníyà yǔ.

Emily studied some Romanian.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 艹 (grass) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced ài

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 艾 (ài) mean in Chinese?
艾 (ài) primarily means "chinese mugwort or wormwood." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1283 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 艾 and 长?
艾 (ài) and 长 (cháng) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 艾 (short) vs 长 (long).
How many strokes does 艾 have?
艾 is written with 5 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 艾?
The radical associated with 艾 is 艹 (grass). This radical appears in many characters related to grass.
What are the components of 艾?
艾 is composed of: 艹 (semantic), 乂 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱艹乂 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 艾?
Common words with 艾 include: 艾迪 (ài dí, "Eddie (name)"); 艾滋病 (ài zī bìng, "(loanword) AIDS"); 艾滋 (ài zī, "(loanword) AIDS"); 艾萨克 (ài sà kè, "Isaac (name)"); 布宜诺斯艾利斯 (bù yí nuò sī ài lì sī, "Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina"). There are over 79 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 艾 (ài)?
Several characters share the pronunciation ài: 爱 (to love), 碍 (to hinder), 哀 ((bound form) sorrow), 癌 (cancer), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 艾 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 艾 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 艾 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.