疵 (cī): blemish

疵 (cī) is a Chinese character meaning “blemish.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 疒 (semantic) and 此 (phonetic). It ranks #3085 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 疵 sickness. Its radical form 疒 (illness) appears in many related characters such as 病 (bìng, illness), 痛 (tòng, pain), 医 (yī, medicine).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. blemish

Etymology & Origin

疵

pictophoneticsickness

Decomposition: ⿸疒此 (layout: surround-from-upper-left)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
瑕疵nounxiá cīblemish
吹毛求疵phrasechuī máo qiú cīlit. to blow apart the hairs upon a fur to discover any defect (idiom)
大醇小疵phrasedà chún xiǎo cīgreat despite minor blemishes
3
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

疵 appears in 3 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 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 疵 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

瑕xiá
0.9003,459 co-occurrences
吹chuī
0.455153 co-occurrences
毛máo
0.389155 co-occurrences
娘niáng
0.34048 co-occurrences
醇chún
0.32318 co-occurrences
求qiú
0.316185 co-occurrences
序xù
0.31388 co-occurrences
茄qié
0.31310 co-occurrences
粉fěn
0.31244 co-occurrences
候hòu
0.309102 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

吹毛求疵chuīmáoqiúcīHSK 7+

to nitpick; to pick holes; to cavel at

phrase
大醇小疵dàchúnxiǎocīHSK 7+

sound on the whole though defective in details

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

疵字虽然难写,但意思很有趣。

cī zì suī rán nán xiě , dàn yì sī hěn yǒu qù .

Although the character "疵" is difficult to write, its meaning is quite interesting.

爱范儿Aug 2026

磨皮算法同样克制,鼻梁、脸颊本身的光影得以保留,仅弱化瑕疵与疲态。

mó pí suàn fǎ tóng yàng kè zhì , bí liáng , liǎn jiá běn shēn de guāng yǐng dé yǐ bǎo liú , jǐn ruò huà xiá cī yǔ pí tài .

The skin-smoothing algorithm is equally subtle, preserving the natural play of light and shadow on the bridge of the nose and cheeks while only softening blemishes and signs of fatigue.

少数派Aug 2026

到了四月份才打开,发现沙发瑕疵很多,而且还录了开箱视频。

dào le sì yuè fèn cái dǎ kāi , fā xiàn shā fā xiá cī hěn duō , ér qiě hái lù le kāi xiāng shì pín .

I didn't open it until April, when I discovered the sofa had a lot of defects, and I even recorded an unboxing video.

少数派Jul 2026

可以简单改一改,但是作为低保真模型留着瑕疵也不是什么问题。

kě yǐ jiǎn dān gǎi yī gǎi , dàn shì zuò wéi dī bǎo zhēn mó xíng liú zhe xiá cī yě bù shì shén má wèn tí .

You can make a few minor adjustments, but it's not a problem to leave some imperfections in it as a low-fidelity model.

中国新闻网·体育Jun 2026

她坦言,近期受伤病影响并不在最佳状态,在身体难度完成方面有很大瑕疵。

tā tǎn yán , jìn qī shòu shāng bìng yǐng xiǎng bìng bù zài zuì jiā zhuàng tài , zài shēn tǐ nán dù wán chéng fāng miàn yǒu hěn dà xiá cī .

She admitted that she hasn't been in top form recently due to injuries and has had significant issues with executing the difficult physical elements of her routine.

LtnFeb 2026

经典赛》看见台湾队守备连2球瑕疵 日本球评说出真心话

jīng diǎn sài kàn jiàn tái wān duì shǒu bèi lián 2 qiú xiá cī rì běn qiú píng shuō chū zhēn xīn huà

Classic" saw the Taiwanese team's defense flaw with 2 goals in a row, and the Japanese commentator told the truth

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 疒 (sickness) component

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 疵 (cī) mean in Chinese?
疵 (cī) primarily means "blemish." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3085 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 疵 and 些?
疵 (cī) and 些 (xiē) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 疒 vs 二 (same 此 component).
How many strokes does 疵 have?
疵 is written with 11 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 疵?
The radical associated with 疵 is 疒 (illness). This radical appears in many characters related to illness.
What are the components of 疵?
疵 is composed of: 疒 (semantic), 此 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿸疒此 with a surround-from-upper-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 疵?
Common words with 疵 include: 瑕疵 (xiá cī, "blemish"); 吹毛求疵 (chuī máo qiú cī, "lit. to blow apart the hairs upon a fur to discover any defect (idiom)"); 大醇小疵 (dà chún xiǎo cī, "great despite minor blemishes"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
Is 疵 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 疵 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 疵 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.