眯 (mí): to blind (as with dust)

眯 (mí) is a Chinese character meaning “to blind (as with dust).” 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).

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

Definitions

  1. 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xiào mī mībeaming
眯眼mī yǎnto narrow one's eyes (as when smiling or squinting)
眯眯眼mī mī yǎnsquinty eyes
色眯眯sè mī mīlustful
眯缝mī 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
0.538642 co-occurrences
睛jīng
0.48696 co-occurrences
笑xiào
0.445126 co-occurrences
缝féng
0.44330 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.35184 co-occurrences
色sè
0.27872 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.

Character Family

目 Radical Family — Characters sharing the eye radical

睬cǎi瞅chǒu瞪dèng盯dīng督dū睹dǔ盹dǔn睛jīng眶kuàng睐lài

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 mí

迷mí

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 眯 (mí) mean in Chinese?
眯 (mí) primarily means "to blind (as with dust)." 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 继?
眯 (mí) and 继 (jì) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 目 vs 纟 (same 米 component).
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 (mí)?
Several characters share the pronunciation mí: 迷 (lost, fascinated). 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.