嘀 (dī): (onom.) sound of dripping water, a ticking clock etc

嘀 (dī) is a Chinese character meaning “(onom.) sound of dripping water, a ticking clock etc.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 啇 (phonetic). It ranks #3015 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 嘀 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 吃 (chī, to eat), 喝 (hē, to drink).

Spoken pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth14 strokesFrequency #3015口 semantic啇 phonetic

Definitions

  1. (onom.) sound of dripping water, a ticking clock etc

Etymology & Origin

嘀

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口啇 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic啇phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
嘀咕verbdí guto mutter
嘀嗒verbdī dā(onom.) tick tock
犯嘀咕verbfàn dí guto hesitate
3
Total compounds
67
As first character
0
As last character
33
As middle character

嘀 appears in 3 compound words: 67 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 33 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 嘀 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

叭bā
0.657128 co-occurrences
咕gū
0.63998 co-occurrences
勿wù
0.40810 co-occurrences
声shēng
0.38846 co-occurrences
打dǎ
0.30036 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他嘀干舌燥地讲了两个小时，终于说服了大家。

tā dī gān shé zào dì jiǎng le liǎng gè xiǎo shí , zhōng yú shuō fú le dà jiā .

He spoke for two hours, his throat parched, and finally managed to convince everyone.

中国新闻网·生活Sep 2026

这样的葡萄能不能吃，心里直犯嘀咕。

zhè yàng de pú táo néng bù néng chī , xīn lǐ zhí fàn dī gū .

I couldn't help but wonder if these grapes were safe to eat.

爱范儿Aug 2026

同程旅行表示，嘀嗒出行将继续保持品牌和运营独立，并计划维持其中国香港上市地位。

tóng chéng lǚ háng biǎo shì , dī 嗒 chū háng jiāng jì xù bǎo chí pǐn pái hé yùn yíng dú lì , bìng jì huá wéi chí qí zhōng guó xiāng gǎng shàng shì dì wèi .

Tongcheng Travel stated that Dida Travel will continue to maintain its brand and operational independence and plans to retain its listing in Hong Kong, China.

少数派May 2026

这种轻微的嘀嗒声对比其他 XBOX 手柄来说也挺有意思的。

zhè zhǒng qīng wēi de dī 嗒 shēng duì bǐ qí tā X B O X shǒu bǐng lái shuō yě tǐng yǒu yì sī de .

This faint clicking sound is actually pretty interesting compared to other Xbox controllers.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 口 (mouth) component

和hé知zhī问wèn呢ne叫jiào吧ba吗ma吃chī号hào哪nǎ

Related Characters

口kǒu吃chī喝hē问wèn叫jiào响xiǎng名míng吐tǔ可kě吗ma

Homophones — Characters pronounced dī

滴dī底dǐ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 嘀 (dī) mean in Chinese?
嘀 (dī) primarily means "(onom.) sound of dripping water, a ticking clock etc." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3015 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 嘀 have?
嘀 is written with 14 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 嘀?
The radical associated with 嘀 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 嘀?
嘀 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 啇 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口啇 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 嘀?
Common words with 嘀 include: 嘀咕 (dí gu, "to mutter"); 嘀嗒 (dī dā, "(onom.) tick tock"); 犯嘀咕 (fàn dí gu, "to hesitate"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 嘀 (dī)?
Several characters share the pronunciation dī: 滴 (to drip), 底 (bottom). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 嘀 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 嘀 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 嘀 with real-time feedback

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

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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.