(piān): to lean, to slant, oblique

(piān) is a Chinese character meaning “to lean.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #1199 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, person. Its radical form (person) appears in many related characters such as (rén, person), (shén, what), (jīn, now).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to lean
  2. to slant
  3. oblique

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticperson

Decomposition: ⿰亻扁 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
piān jiànprejudice
piān líto deviate
piān piān(indicating that sth turns out just the opposite of what one would wish) unfortunately
piān zhíextreme and inflexible
piān pìremote
piān àito be partial towards sth
piān yuǎnremote
piān hàoto have a special liking (for sth)
piān xiàngpartial towards sth
piān tǎnto bare one shoulder
piān chābias
piān jīextreme (usu. of thoughts, speech, circumstances)
piān xīnpartial
bù piān bù yǐ(idiom) even-handed
piān zhuǎndeflection (physics)
100
Total compounds
87
As first character
3
As last character
10
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 87 as the first character, 3 as the last, and 10 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.

0.6217,038 co-occurrences
shí
0.60687,864 co-occurrences
xiàng
0.46952,572 co-occurrences
chā
0.46616,986 co-occurrences
zhèn
0.4489,174 co-occurrences
西
0.44365,850 co-occurrences
nán
0.44361,254 co-occurrences
běi
0.44258,404 co-occurrences
hǎo
0.44026,592 co-occurrences
0.4311,410 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (5)

bǔpiānjiùbìHSK 7+

to remedy deviations and rectify errors

phrase
bùpiānbùyǐHSK 7+

even-handed; impartial; unbiased

phrase
piān tīng piān xìnHSK 7+

selective listening; to hear what one wants to hear

phrase
yǐpiāngàiquánHSK 7+

to take a part for the whole; to generalise

phrase

Showing 4 of 5 idioms containing .

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

那个影在月光下显得格外孤独。

nā gě piān yǐng zài yuè guāng xià xiǎn dé gé wài gū dú .

That shadow seemed especially lonely in the moonlight.

東方日報Feb 2026

道指泻821点 港股ADR指数

dào zhǐ xiè 8 2 1 diǎn gǎng gǔ A D R zhǐ shǔ piān ruǎn

The Dow fell 821 points, and the Hong Kong stock ADR index was soft

Investing 香港Feb 2026

关税裁决逆转风险好 新兴市场ETF单日吸金4.3亿创流入...

guān shuì cái jué nì zhuǎn fēng xiǎn piān hǎo xīn xīng shì chǎng E T F dān rì xī jīn 4 . 3 yì chuàng liú rù . . .

Tariff rulings reverse risk appetite, emerging market ETFs attract 430 million yuan in a single day, creating inflows...

大紀元 | 大紀元新聞網Feb 2026

国教署投1.4亿 助乡839校活化教学

guó jiào shǔ tóu 1 . 4 yì zhù piān xiāng 8 3 9 jiào huó huà jiào xué

The State Education Administration invested 140 million yuan to help 839 schools in rural areas revitalize teaching

It之家Feb 2026

...迪详解澳洲车型本地化调校细节,悬架更硬更欧规设定

. . . dí xiáng jiě ào zhōu chē xíng běn dì huà diào jiào xì jié , xuán jià gēng yìng gēng piān ōu guī shè dìng

... Di explained in detail the details of the localization of the Australian model, and the suspension was stiffer and more European

Tatoeba

我对外籍员工没有见。

Wǒ duì wàijí yuángōng méiyǒu piānjiàn.

I don't have a prejudice against foreign workers.

Tatoeba

她出生于尼泊尔的一个远小山村。

Tā chūshēng yú Níbó'ěr de yī gè piānyuǎn xiǎo shāncūn.

She was born in a remote village in Nepal.

Tatoeba

他故意射, 因为不想射死我。

Tā gùyì shè piān, yīnwèi bù xiǎng shè sǐ wǒ.

He missed on purpose so as not to kill me.

Tatoeba

好结局圆满的小说。

Wǒ piānhào jiéjú yuánmǎn de xiǎoshuō.

I prefer novels that have a happy ending.

Tatoeba

相比于智慧更爱力量是不公平的。

Xiāngbǐ yú zhìhuì gèng piān'ài lìliang shì bù gōngpíng de.

It is not just to prefer strength to good wisdom.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced piān

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 偏 (piān) mean in Chinese?
偏 (piān) primarily means "to lean." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1199 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 偏 and 编?
偏 (piān) and 编 (biān) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 亻 vs 纟 (same 扁 component).
How many strokes does 偏 have?
偏 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 偏?
The radical associated with 偏 is 亻 (person). This radical appears in many characters related to person.
What are the components of 偏?
偏 is composed of: 亻 (semantic), 扁 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰亻扁 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 偏?
Common words with 偏 include: 偏见 (piān jiàn, "prejudice"); 偏离 (piān lí, "to deviate"); 偏偏 (piān piān, "(indicating that sth turns out just the opposite of what one would wish) unfortunately"); 偏执 (piān zhí, "extreme and inflexible"); 偏僻 (piān pì, "remote"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 偏 (piān)?
Several characters share the pronunciation piān: 骗 (to cheat), 扁 (flat), 篇 (sheet), 片 (thin piece). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 偏 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 偏 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.