(shǐ): (of a vehicle, horse etc) to go fast, to speed, (of a vehicle) to run, to go, (of a boat) to sail

(shǐ) is a Chinese character meaning “(of a vehicle, horse etc) to go fast.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #1510 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, horse. Its radical form (horse) appears in many related characters such as (, horse), (, to ride), (yàn, to test, to verify).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. (of a vehicle, horse etc) to go fast
  2. to speed
  3. (of a vehicle) to run
  4. to go
  5. (of a boat) to sail

Etymology & Origin

pictophonetichorse

Decomposition: ⿰马史 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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
verbjià shǐto drive (vehicle)5
verbxíng shǐto travel along a route (of vehicles etc)5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
jià shǐ yuánpilot
jià shǐ cāngcockpit
jià shǐ zhèngdriver's license
jià shǐ shìcab (of a locomotive, truck etc)
shǐ xiàng(of a train, boat, plane etc) to head in the direction of
shǐ rù(of a car, ship, train etc) to enter
shǐ líto steer (the plane) away from
shǐ wǎng(of a vehicle, boat etc) to travel to
shǐ chūto leave port
jí shǐ(of a vehicle) to travel at high speed
wú rén jià shǐunmanned
jìn zhǐ shǐ rùDo not enter! (road sign)
jiǔ hòu jià shǐdriving under the influence of alcohol (DUI)
shǐ liúswiftly flowing
fù shǐ(of a public transportation route) to resume operating
26
Total compounds
23
As first character
38
As last character
38
As middle character

appears in 26 compound words: 23 as the first character, 38 as the last, and 38 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.

jià
0.88882,954 co-occurrences
cāng
0.5875,994 co-occurrences
chē
0.47322,222 co-occurrences
liàng
0.4714,564 co-occurrences
yuán
0.43516,788 co-occurrences
háng
0.40736,397 co-occurrences
fēi
0.4063,528 co-occurrences
zhèng
0.3903,108 co-occurrences
xiàng
0.38910,614 co-occurrences
shì
0.3865,892 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

jiàshǐ zhízhàoHSK 5+

driver's license; driving license

noun
jìn zhǐ shǐ rùHSK 5+

Do not enter! (road sign)

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这个字在古汉语中有不同的含义。

zhè gě shǐ zì zài gǔ hàn yǔ zhōng yǒu bù tóng de hán yì .

The character "驶" had different meanings in classical Chinese.

美通社Feb 2026

...it 与 Mobileye 宣布在自动驾解决方案领域开展合作

. . . i t yǔ M o b i l e y e xuān bù zài zì dòng jià shǐ jiě jué fāng àn lǐng yù kāi zhǎn gě zuò

... it and Mobileye have announced a collaboration in the field of autonomous driving solutions

EttodayFeb 2026

军车撞死母女! 驾兵背锅判刑10个月

jūn chē zhuàng sǐ mǔ nǚ ! jià shǐ bīng bèi guō pàn xíng 1 0 gè yuè

The military vehicle hit the mother and daughter to death! The driver was sentenced to 10 months in prison

中時新聞網Feb 2026

国3龙井段惊魂!驾分心追撞缓撞车 车流回堵2公里

guó 3 lóng jǐng duàn jīng hún ! jià shǐ fēn xīn zhuī zhuàng huǎn zhuàng chē chē liú huí dǔ 2 gōng lǐ

National 3 Longjing section is horror! The driver was distracted and slowed down the collision, and the traffic flow was blocked for 2 kilometers

Irna ChineseFeb 2026

商业船舶正从全球各地往伊朗港口

shāng yè chuán bó zhèng cóng quán qiú gè dì shǐ wǎng yī lǎng gǎng kǒu

Commercial ships are sailing from all over the world to Iranian ports

LtnFeb 2026

台中公车入校园+1 “282绕”停靠雾峰国中

tái zhōng gōng chē shǐ rù jiào yuán 1 2 8 2 rào tíng kào wù fēng guó zhōng

Taichung bus drove into the campus +1 "282 rounds" and stopped at Wufeng Junior High School

Tatoeba

汤姆因无证驾而被逮捕。

Tāngmǔ yīn wú zhèng jiàshǐ ér bèi dàibǔ.

Tom was arrested for driving without a licence.

Tatoeba

司机被控超速驾

Sījī bèikòng chāosù jiàshǐ.

The driver was charged with speeding.

Tatoeba

喝醉的驾员对车祸有责任。

Hēzuì de jiàshǐyuán duì chēhuò yǒuzérèn.

A drunk driver was responsible for the car accident.

Tatoeba

警察因酒后驾逮捕了他。

Jǐngchá yīn jiǔhòujiàshǐ dàibǔ le tā.

The policeman arrested him for drunken driving.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced shǐ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 驶 (shǐ) mean in Chinese?
驶 (shǐ) primarily means "(of a vehicle, horse etc) to go fast." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1510 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 驶 and 来?
驶 (shǐ) and 来 (lái) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 驶 (go) vs 来 (come).
How many strokes does 驶 have?
驶 is written with 8 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 驶?
The radical associated with 驶 is 马 (horse). This radical appears in many characters related to horse.
What are the components of 驶?
驶 is composed of: 马 (semantic), 史 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰马史 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 驶?
Common words with 驶 include: 驾驶 (jià shǐ, "to drive (vehicle)"); 行驶 (xíng shǐ, "to travel along a route (of vehicles etc)"); 驾驶员 (jià shǐ yuán, "pilot"); 驾驶舱 (jià shǐ cāng, "cockpit"); 驾驶证 (jià shǐ zhèng, "driver's license"). There are over 26 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 驶 (shǐ)?
Several characters share the pronunciation shǐ: 师 (teacher), 十 (ten), 时 (time, hour), 识 (to know, knowledge), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 驶 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 驶 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.