(): Germany, German, abbr. for 德國|德国

() is a Chinese character meaning “germany.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (structural). It ranks #256 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, heart. Its radical form (step) appears in many related characters such as (hěn, very), (, to obtain), (wǎng, to go (in a direction)).

Native pronunciation
HSK 6Radical: step15 strokesFrequency #256 structural

Definitions

  1. Germany
  2. German
  3. abbr. for 德國|德国

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿰彳⿱⿱十罒⿱一心 (layout: left-right)

Components:structural

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
noun/adjectivedào dévirtue6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
dé guóGermany
西xī déWest Germany
dé zhōusee 德州市[De2 zhou1 Shi4]
dé yǔGerman (language)
wéi déWade (name)
bāng déBond (name)
páng déPang De (-219), general of Cao Wei at the start of the Three Kingdoms period, victor over Guan Yu 關羽|关羽
měi dévirtue
dé xíngmorality and conduct
dé lǐDelhi
lù déLuther (name)
āi déEd (name - Eduard)
hǎi déHyde (surname)
quē démean
dé wénGerman (language)
100
Total compounds
36
As first character
64
As last character
0
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 36 as the first character, 64 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

hǎn
0.52862,448 co-occurrences
ěr
0.519402,084 co-occurrences
0.49784,528 co-occurrences
0.483331,086 co-occurrences
0.48281,930 co-occurrences
0.48268,786 co-occurrences
léi
0.479162,198 co-occurrences
0.472135,294 co-occurrences
0.472365,718 co-occurrences
0.471472,926 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (41)

ĀdéléidéHSK 6+

Alternative name for 阿德萊德/阿德莱德 (Ādéláidé).: Adelaide (the state capital and largest city in South Australia, Australia)

ÀidéméngdùnHSK 7+

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

ÀihāmàidéHSK 7+

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

ÀidéhuázīHSK 7+

a transliteration of the English surname Edwards

ÀodéxiūsīHSK 7+

Odysseus

BōdélǐcháHSK 7+

Podgorica (the capital city of Montenegro)

dàodé bǎngjiàHSK 7+

to hijack morality to condemn someone; to occupy the moral high ground to dictate what others should do

phrase
décáijiānbèiHSK 6+

having both talents and morals; having both ability and integrity

phrase
DékèsàsīHSK 7+

(Taiwan) Texas (a state in the south-central region of the United States)

DélěisīdùnHSK 7+

Dresden

DéwòxiàkèHSK 6+

a transliteration of the Czech surname Dvořák; a transliteration of the English surname Dvorak

déyìshuāngxīnHSK 7+

being reputable for having both artistic skills and morals (especially when referring to an artist of any domain)

phrase

Showing 12 of 41 idioms containing .

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

学习字需要反复练习,才能写得工整。

xué xí dé zì xū yāo fǎn fù liàn xí , cái néng xiě dé gōng zhěng .

Mastering the character "德" requires repeated practice to write it neatly.

LtnFeb 2026

阿曼证实美伊2/26日内瓦再谈 传黑兰愿就核计画让步

ā 曼 zhèng shí měi yī 2 2 6 rì nèi wǎ zài tán chuán dé hēi lán yuàn jiù hé jì huà ràng bù

Oman confirmed that the United States and Iran will talk again in Geneva on 2/26 and it is rumored that Tehran is willing to make concessions on the nuclear program

Fx168 Finance NetworkFeb 2026

...%全球关税为中国送上“减税大礼”,英法日成“最大输家”-FX168

. . . quán qiú guān shuì wéi zhōng guó sòng shàng jiǎn shuì dà lǐ , yīng fǎ rì dé chéng zuì dà shū jiā F X 1 6 8

...% Global tariffs have sent a "tax reduction gift" to China, and Britain, France and Japan have become the "biggest losers" - FX168

WorldjournalFeb 2026

冬奥/越野滑雪收官战:瑞典名将安松女子50公里夺金

dōng ào yuè yě huá xuě shōu guān zhàn : ruì diǎn míng jiāng ān dé sōng nǚ zǐ 5 0 gōng lǐ duó jīn

Winter Olympics/Cross-country Skiing Finale: Sweden's Andersson won gold in the women's 50km

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

...API石油钢管大厂天声将斥资13亿元前进

. . . A P I shí yóu gāng guǎn dà hǎn tiān shēng jiāng chì zī 1 3 yì yuán qián jìn dé zhōu

... API petroleum steel pipe manufacturer Tiansheng will spend 1.3 billion yuan to advance to Texas

百度新闻Feb 2026

美国这座机场要改名“唐纳·特朗普国际机场”

měi guó zhè zuò jī chǎng yāo gǎi míng táng nà dé tè lǎng pǔ guó jì jī chǎng

The airport in the United States will be renamed "Donald Trump International Airport"

Tatoeba

兰的首都是什么?

Nídélán de shǒudū shì shén me?

What is the capital of the Netherlands?

Tatoeba

忍耐是最美的美

Rěnnài shì zuì měi de měidé.

Patience is the most beautiful virtue.

Tatoeba

瑞典的首都是斯哥尔摩。

Ruìdiǎn de shǒudū shì Sīdégē'ěrmó.

The capital of Sweden is Stockholm.

Tatoeba

梅纳不能自己去上厕所。

Méinàdé bù néng zìjǐ qù shàng cèsuǒ.

Mennad couldn't go to the toilet by himself.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 德 (dé) mean in Chinese?
德 (dé) primarily means "germany." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #256 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 德 have?
德 is written with 15 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 德?
The radical associated with 德 is 彳 (step). This radical appears in many characters related to step.
What are the components of 德?
德 is composed of: 彳 (structural), undefined (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰彳⿱⿱十罒⿱一心 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 德?
Common words with 德 include: 德国 (dé guó, "Germany"); 西德 (xī dé, "West Germany"); 道德 (dào dé, "virtue"); 德州 (dé zhōu, "see 德州市[De2 zhou1 Shi4]"); 德语 (dé yǔ, "German (language)"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 德 (dé)?
Several characters share the pronunciation dé: 得 (to obtain), 的 (of), 底 ((equivalent to 的 as possessive particle)). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 德 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 德 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native 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.