眯 (mī): to narrow one's eyes, to squint, (dialect) to take a nap, to blind (as with dust)

眯 (mī) is a Chinese character meaning “to narrow one's eyes.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 目 (semantic) and 米 (phonetic). It ranks #3088 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 眯 eye. Its radical form 目 (eye) appears in many related characters such as 目 (mù, eye), 看 (kàn, to look, to see), 眼 (yǎn, eye).

Spoken pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 目 eye11 strokesFrequency #3088目 semantic米 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to narrow one's eyes
  2. to squint
  3. (dialect) to take a nap
  4. to blind (as with dust)

Etymology & Origin

眯

pictophoneticeye

Decomposition: ⿰目米 (layout: left-right)

Components:目semantic米phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
笑眯眯adverbxiào mī mībeaming
眯眼mī yǎnto narrow one's eyes (as when smiling or squinting)
眯眯眼nounmī mī yǎnsquinty eyes
色眯眯sè mī mīlustful
眯缝verbmī fengto squint
5
Total compounds
60
As first character
0
As last character
40
As middle character

眯 appears in 5 compound words: 60 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 40 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 眯 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

眼yǎn
0.530214 co-occurrences
睛jīng
0.47932 co-occurrences
笑xiào
0.43942 co-occurrences
缝féng
0.43710 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.34628 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

眯字由11笔画组成，结构很巧妙。

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

The character "眯" consists of 11 strokes and has a very ingenious structure.

中国新闻网·文化Sep 2026

王芬凌晨四五点的时候去眯了一会，7点就又醒了，“高兴、激动得不得了”。

wáng fēn líng chén sì wǔ diǎn de shí hòu qù mí le yī huì , 7 diǎn jiù yòu xǐng le , gāo xīng , jī dòng dé bù dé le .

Wang Fen took a quick nap around 4 or 5 a.m. and woke up again at 7 a.m., “overjoyed and incredibly excited.”

中国新闻网·生活Jun 2026

赛前一小时闭眼眯一会儿即可，千万别睡沉。

sài qián yī xiǎo shí bì yǎn mí yī huì ér jí kě , qiān wàn bié shuì chén .

Just close your eyes and take a quick nap an hour before the race—but don’t fall into a deep sleep.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 目 (eye) component

眼yǎn省shěng睡shuì睛jīng冒mào督dū瞧qiáo盯dīng睁zhēng眠mián

Related Characters

目mù看kàn眼yǎn着zhe睡shuì觉jué睛jīng盯dīng相xiāng省shěng

Homophones — Characters pronounced mī

谜mí

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 眯 (mī) mean in Chinese?
眯 (mī) primarily means "to narrow one's eyes." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3088 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 眯 and 宽?
眯 (mī) and 宽 (kuān) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 眯 (narrow) vs 宽 (wide).
How many strokes does 眯 have?
眯 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 眯?
The radical associated with 眯 is 目 (eye). This radical appears in many characters related to eye.
What are the components of 眯?
眯 is composed of: 目 (semantic), 米 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰目米 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 眯?
Common words with 眯 include: 笑眯眯 (xiào mī mī, "beaming"); 眯眼 (mī yǎn, "to narrow one's eyes (as when smiling or squinting)"); 眯眯眼 (mī mī yǎn, "squinty eyes"); 色眯眯 (sè mī mī, "lustful"); 眯缝 (mī feng, "to squint"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 眯 (mī)?
Several characters share the pronunciation mī: 谜 (riddle). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 眯 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 眯 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.