馁 (něi): (bound form) hungry, starving, (bound form) dispirited, (literary) (of fish) putrid

馁 (něi) is a Chinese character meaning “(bound form) hungry.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 饣 (semantic) and 妥 (phonetic). It ranks #2986 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 馁 food. Its radical form 饣 (eat) appears in many related characters such as 饭 (fàn, meal, rice), 饿 (è, hungry), 馆 (guǎn, restaurant, hall).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 饣 eat10 strokesFrequency #2986饣 semantic妥 phonetic

Definitions

  1. (bound form) hungry
  2. starving
  3. (bound form) dispirited
  4. (literary) (of fish) putrid

Etymology & Origin

馁

pictophoneticfood

Decomposition: ⿰饣妥 (layout: left-right)

Components:饣semantic妥phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
气馁qì něito be discouraged
胜不骄，败不馁shèng bù jiāo , bài bù něino arrogance in victory, no despair in defeat
自馁zì něito lose confidence
3
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

馁 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 馁 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

继jì
0.67412 co-occurrences
努nǔ
0.67012 co-occurrences
虽suī
0.62913 co-occurrences
冻dòng
0.590192 co-occurrences
续xù
0.58512 co-occurrences
失shī
0.52812 co-occurrences
秃tū
0.51342 co-occurrences
气qì
0.503572 co-occurrences
但dàn
0.49313 co-occurrences
饥jī
0.48448 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

馁堂里的饭菜虽然简单，但很可口。

něi táng lǐ de fàn cài suī rán jiǎn shàn , dàn hěn kě kǒu .

The food in the dining hall was simple but delicious.

Tatoeba

别气馁，继续写作吧。

Bié qìněi, jìxù xiězuò ba.

Keep a good heart and go on writing.

Tatoeba

玛丽告诉我她不气馁。

Mǎlì gàosu wǒ tā bù qìněi.

Mary told me she wasn't discouraged.

Character Family

饣 Radical Family — Characters sharing the eat radical

饱bǎo饼bǐng馋chán饵ěr饭fàn饥jī饺jiǎo馒mán饶ráo饪rèn

Related Characters

饭fàn饿è馆guǎn食shí餐cān饱bǎo饺jiǎo饮yǐn饰shì饼bǐng

Homophones — Characters pronounced něi

内nèi

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 馁 (něi) mean in Chinese?
馁 (něi) primarily means "(bound form) hungry." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2986 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 馁 have?
馁 is written with 10 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 馁?
The radical associated with 馁 is 饣 (eat). This radical appears in many characters related to eat.
What are the components of 馁?
馁 is composed of: 饣 (semantic), 妥 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰饣妥 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 馁?
Common words with 馁 include: 气馁 (qì něi, "to be discouraged"); 胜不骄，败不馁 (shèng bù jiāo , bài bù něi, "no arrogance in victory, no despair in defeat"); 自馁 (zì něi, "to lose confidence"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 馁 (něi)?
Several characters share the pronunciation něi: 内 (inside). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 馁 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 馁 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 馁 with real-time feedback

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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.