喂 (wèi): hey, to feed (an animal, baby, invalid etc), hello (when answering the phone)

喂 (wèi) is a Chinese character meaning “hey.” Classified as HSK Level 1 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 畏 (phonetic). It ranks #1961 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 喂 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 叫 (jiào, to call, to be called), 右 (yòu, (bound form) right).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. hey
  2. to feed (an animal, baby, invalid etc)
  3. hello (when answering the phone)

Etymology & Origin

喂

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口畏 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
喂养verbwèi yǎngto feed (a child, domestic animal etc)
喂奶verbwèi nǎito breast-feed
良心喂狗liáng xīn wèi gǒuto have fed one's conscience to the dogs (idiom)
喂料verbwèi liàoto feed (also fig.)
投喂verbtóu wèito feed (an animal)
喂食verbwèi shíto feed
母乳喂养verbmǔ rǔ wèi yǎngbreastfeeding
喂母乳wèi mǔ rǔbreastfeeding
饲喂sì wèito feed (an animal)
喂哺verbwèi bǔto feed (a baby)
10
Total compounds
60
As first character
20
As last character
20
As middle character

喂 appears in 10 compound words: 60 as the first character, 20 as the last, and 20 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 喂 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

养yǎng
0.5731,070 co-occurrences
饲sì
0.568204 co-occurrences
妇fù
0.56540 co-occurrences
边biān
0.55470 co-occurrences
哎āi
0.55358 co-occurrences
孕yùn
0.54531 co-occurrences
乳rǔ
0.523391 co-occurrences
奶nǎi
0.509224 co-occurrences
饱bǎo
0.49996 co-occurrences
唉āi
0.49118 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他喂才很好,能言善辩,是个出色的律师。

tā wéi cái hěn hǎo , néng yán shàn biàn , shì gě chū sè de lǜ shī .

He's quite the charmer, a smooth talker, and an outstanding lawyer.

99 健康网Feb 2026

孕妇一边喂奶一边做dna的准确率受体重影响吗?肥胖...

yùn fù yī biān wéi nǎi yī biān zuò d n a de zhǔn què lǜ shòu tǐ chóng yǐng xiǎng ma ? féi pàng . . .

Is the accuracy of DNA done while breastfeeding affected by weight? Obesity...

99 健康网Feb 2026

孕妇一边喂奶一边做dna的准确率高吗?无创产前检测...

yùn fù yī biān wéi nǎi yī biān zuò d n a de zhǔn què lǜ gāo ma ? wú chuàng chǎn qián jiǎn cè . . .

Is it high for pregnant women to do DNA while breastfeeding? Non-invasive prenatal testing...

三立新聞網Feb 2026

赛前练打陈伟殷亲喂 费仔曝看他投球长大

sài qián liàn dǎ chén wěi yīn qīn wéi fèi zǐ pù kàn tā tóu qiú cháng dà

Before the game, Chen Weiyin personally fed Fei Zai exposed that he grew up pitching

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Feb 2026

服务质量参差不齐,上门喂养宠物服务该如何规范

fú wù zhì liàng cān chā bù qí , shàng mén wéi yǎng chǒng wù fú wù gāi rú hé guī fàn

The quality of service is uneven, and how to standardize door-to-door pet feeding services

Nownews今日新聞Feb 2026

人妻二宝妈激战小王!狂喊“想边喂奶边被X” 工程师夫崩溃提告

rén qī èr bǎo mā jī zhàn xiǎo wáng ! kuáng hǎn xiǎng biān wéi nǎi biān bèi X gōng chéng shī fū bēng kuì tí gào

The second mother of the wife fought fiercely with Xiao Wang! Shouting "I want to breastfeed while being X" The engineer collapsed and sued

Tatoeba

你今天早上喂过狗了吗?

Nǐ jīntiān zǎoshang wèi guo gǒu le ma?

Did you feed the dog this morning?

Tatoeba

喂,请问现在能给我马上送一叠稿子吗?

Wèi, qǐngwèn xiànzài néng gěi wǒ mǎshàng sòng yī dié gǎozi ma?

Hey, could you send over a stack of manuscripts straight away?

Tatoeba

喂,这橘子多少钱买一斤啊?

Wèi, zhè júzi duōshao qián mǎi yī jīn ā?

Hey, how much does one pound of these oranges cost?

Tatoeba

喂,你能把灯关掉吗?

Wèi, nǐ néng bǎ dēng guāndiào ma?

Hey, can you turn the lights off?

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 口 (mouth) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced wèi

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 喂 (wèi) mean in Chinese?
喂 (wèi) primarily means "hey." It is classified as HSK Level 1, making it a beginner-level character. It ranks #1961 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 喂 have?
喂 is written with 12 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 喂?
The radical associated with 喂 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 喂?
喂 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 畏 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口畏 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 喂?
Common words with 喂 include: 喂养 (wèi yǎng, "to feed (a child, domestic animal etc)"); 喂奶 (wèi nǎi, "to breast-feed"); 良心喂狗 (liáng xīn wèi gǒu, "to have fed one's conscience to the dogs (idiom)"); 喂料 (wèi liào, "to feed (also fig.)"); 投喂 (tóu wèi, "to feed (an animal)"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 喂 (wèi)?
Several characters share the pronunciation wèi: 为 (as (in the capacity of)), 位 (position, measure word), 维 (to maintain), 围 (to encircle), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 喂 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 喂 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 喂 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken 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.