岂 (qǐ): how? (emphatic question)

岂 (qǐ) is a Chinese character meaning “how? (emphatic question).” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 山 (structural) and 己 (phonetic). It ranks #1710 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 岂 is a compound character. Its radical form 山 (mountain) appears in many related characters such as 山 (shān, mountain), 岁 (suì, years old), 岸 (àn, bank).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 山 mountain6 strokesFrequency #1710山 structural己 phonetic

Definitions

  1. how? (emphatic question)

Etymology & Origin

岂

pictophoneticThis character is a compound form.

Decomposition: ⿱山己 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:山structural己phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
岂止qǐ zhǐnot only
岂有此理qǐ yǒu cǐ lǐhow can this be so? (idiom)
岂不qǐ bùhow couldn't...?
岂非qǐ fēiwouldn't it be ... ?
岂料qǐ liàowho would have thought that
岂敢qǐ gǎnhow could one dare?
6
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

岂 appears in 6 compound words: 100 as the first character, 0 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 岂 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

敢gǎn
0.447582 co-occurrences
祸huò
0.422144 co-occurrences
谓wèi
0.411294 co-occurrences
矣yǐ
0.388174 co-occurrences
曰yuē
0.383468 co-occurrences
辈bèi
0.37372 co-occurrences
忧yōu
0.36790 co-occurrences
滔tāo
0.36436 co-occurrences
忘wàng
0.364192 co-occurrences
贼zéi
0.36384 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

岂有此理qǐyǒucǐlǐHSK 7+

preposterous; outrageous; absurd

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

岂字的写法很特别，让我印象深刻。

kǎi zì de xiě fǎ hěn tè bié , ràng wǒ yìn xiàng shēn kè .

The character "岂" has a very distinctive writing style that left a deep impression on me.

Tatoeba

每天都这样岂不是很无聊！

Měitiān dōu zhèyàng qǐbù shì hěn wúliáo!

Spending every day like this must be boring!

Character Family

山 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mountain radical

岸àn岔chà崇chóng岛dǎo峰fēng岗gǎng山shān岁suì屹yì屿yǔ

Related Characters

山shān岁suì岸àn岗gǎng岛dǎo峰fēng崇chóng屹yì屿yǔ岔chà

Homophones — Characters pronounced qǐ

起qǐ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 岂 (qǐ) mean in Chinese?
岂 (qǐ) primarily means "how? (emphatic question)." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1710 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 岂 and 纪?
岂 (qǐ) and 纪 (jì) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 山 vs 纟 (same 己 component).
How many strokes does 岂 have?
岂 is written with 6 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 岂?
The radical associated with 岂 is 山 (mountain). This radical appears in many characters related to mountain.
What are the components of 岂?
岂 is composed of: 山 (structural), 己 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱山己 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 岂?
Common words with 岂 include: 岂止 (qǐ zhǐ, "not only"); 岂有此理 (qǐ yǒu cǐ lǐ, "how can this be so? (idiom)"); 岂不 (qǐ bù, "how couldn't...?"); 岂非 (qǐ fēi, "wouldn't it be ... ?"); 岂料 (qǐ liào, "who would have thought that"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 岂 (qǐ)?
Several characters share the pronunciation qǐ: 起 (to rise). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 岂 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 岂 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 岂 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.