(pài): (literary) tributary, branch of a river, clique, school, group, faction, (bound form) style, manner

(pài) is a Chinese character meaning “(literary) tributary.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (structural). It ranks #532 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. (literary) tributary
  2. branch of a river
  3. clique
  4. school
  5. group
  6. faction
  7. (bound form) style
  8. manner

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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
nounpài chū suǒlocal police station5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
pài duì(loanword) party
bāng pàigang
pài chūto send
zhǐ pàito assign
pài qiǎnto send (on a mission)
zhèng pài(of a person) upright
jiào pàisect
dǎng pàipolitical party
bǎo shǒu pàiconservative faction
fēn pàito assign (a task to different people)
liǎng miàn pàitwo-faced person
pài biégroup
qì pàiimpressive
wěi pàito appoint
tè pài yuánspecial correspondent
100
Total compounds
24
As first character
74
As last character
2
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 24 as the first character, 74 as the last, and 2 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.

qiǎn
0.686156,438 co-occurrences
xià
0.56014 co-occurrences
líng
0.53512 co-occurrences
fǎn
0.489123,456 co-occurrences
dǎng
0.45463,732 co-occurrences
tào
0.44023 co-occurrences
chū
0.418226,950 co-occurrences
zuǒ
0.41638,844 co-occurrences
shǒu
0.41137,710 co-occurrences
cuì
0.4079,606 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

fànmínzhǔpàiHSK 5+

pro-democracy camp; pan-democrats

noun

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

公司他去国外出差,学习先进技术。

Gōngsī pài tā qù guówài chūchāi, xuéxí xiānjìn jìshù.

The company sent him abroad on business to learn advanced technology.

InvestingFeb 2026

...ali 2025财年业绩:创纪录利润,拟发2.9欧元股息

. . . a l i 2 0 2 5 cái nián yè jì : chuàng jì lù lì rùn , nǐ pài fā 2 . 9 ōu yuán gǔ xī

... ALI FY2025 results: record profit, proposed dividend of 2.9 euros

公視新聞網 PnnFeb 2026

一晚6千旅馆见蟑螂尸体 台南观旅局员稽查

yī wǎn 6 qiān lǚ guǎn jiàn 蟑 螂 shī tǐ tái nán guàn lǚ jú pài yuán jī chá

6,000 hotels saw cockroach corpses in one night, and the Tainan Tourism Bureau sent personnel to inspect

百度新闻Feb 2026

...伊核下午俄乌,特朗普“谈判用人”引争议:俩房..

. . . yī hé xià wǔ é wū , tè lǎng pǔ tán pàn yòng rén yǐn zhēng yì pā liǎ fáng . .

... Iran nuclear afternoon Russia and Ukraine, Trump's "negotiation with people" attracted controversy: sent two room ...

百度新闻Feb 2026

大年初一暖心事!流浪28年,盐城阜宁东站出所助流..

dà nián chū yī nuǎn xīn shì ! liú làng nián , yán chéng 阜 nìng dōng zhàn pā chū suǒ zhù liú . .

The first day of the Lunar New Year! After 28 years of wandering, Yancheng Funing East Station Police Station helped...

Tatoeba

他们属于哪一个佛教宗

Tāmen shǔyú nǎyīge Fójiào zōngpài?

Which Buddhist school of thought do they belong to?

Tatoeba

佛教思想分为哪一些宗

Fójiào sīxiǎng fēnwéi nǎ yīxiē zōngpài?

Which schools is Buddhist thought divided into?

Tatoeba

汤姆了你们来吗?

Tāngmǔ pài le nǐmen lái ma?

Did Tom send you?

Tatoeba

我去那个对纯粹是为了交际。

Wǒqù nàge pàiduì chúncuì shì wèile jiāojì.

I attended the party just to be sociable.

Tatoeba

现代年轻人戴风帽是装一种头。

Xiàndài niánqīngrén dài fēng mào shì zhuāng yīzhǒng pàitóu.

Currently, having a hood is part of young people's fashion.

Character Family

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 派 (pài) mean in Chinese?
派 (pài) primarily means "(literary) tributary." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #532 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 派 have?
派 is written with 9 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 派?
The radical associated with 派 is 氵 (water). This radical appears in many characters related to water.
What are the components of 派?
派 is composed of: 氵 (structural), undefined (structural). Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 派?
Common words with 派 include: 派对 (pài duì, "(loanword) party"); 帮派 (bāng pài, "gang"); 派出 (pài chū, "to send"); 指派 (zhǐ pài, "to assign"); 派遣 (pài qiǎn, "to send (on a mission)"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
Is 派 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 派 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.