(wéi): as (in the capacity of), to take sth as, to act as

(wéi) is a Chinese character meaning “as (in the capacity of).” Classified as HSK Level 2 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (structural). It ranks #18 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. as (in the capacity of)
  2. to take sth as
  3. to act as

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4

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Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
preposition/conjunctionyīn wèibecause2
wèi shén mewhy?2
verbrèn wéito believe3
prepositionwèi lefor3
verbyǐ wéito think3
verbchéng wéito become4
zuò wéione's conduct4
nounxíng wéiaction5
adverbwèi héwhy6
verbwéi zhǐuntil6
verbchēng wéito be called5
conjunctionwèi cǐfor this reason6
adjective/verbwéi nánto feel embarrassed or awkward6
verbshì wéito view as5
adverbjí wéiextremely6
adjectiverén wéiartificial6
verbfēn wéito divide sth into (parts)4
wéi qī(to be done) by (a certain date)6
adverbjiào wéicomparatively6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
chēng zhī wéito call it...
xìng xíng wéisexual behavior
gèng wéieven more
zuì wéithe most
wéi shēngto make a living
wéi rénto conduct oneself
nán wéi qíngembarrassed
shēn wéiin the capacity of
biàn wéito change into
liè wéito be classified as
bù wéi rén zhīnot known to anyone
pō wéirather
wéi zhǔto rely mainly on
100
Total compounds
26
As first character
52
As last character
22
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 26 as the first character, 52 as the last, and 22 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.

rèn
0.671989,553 co-occurrences
chèn
0.557703,944 co-occurrences
0.529229,536 co-occurrences
biān
0.501326,934 co-occurrences
bèi
0.4921,093,872 co-occurrences
chéng
0.4751,299,186 co-occurrences
gǎi
0.465519,876 co-occurrences
shǔ
0.460384,744 co-occurrences
gāi
0.455363,228 co-occurrences
yīn
0.453688,511 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (93)

bùwéirénzhīHSK 2+

not known by people; unknown

phrase
bùwéisuǒdòngHSK 2+

unmoved; steadfast

phrase
bùwéiyǐshènHSK 4+

to not go too far; to refrain from going to extremes; to never go beyond reasonable limits

phrase
bùyǐwéiránHSK 2+

to not accept as correct; to disagree; to object; to disapprove; to not care; to not regard as important

phrase
bùyǐwéiyìHSK 2+

to be oblivious to (or of); not to take it seriously

phrase
bù zú wéi dàoHSK 2+

to be not worth mentioning

phrase
bùzúwéiguàiHSK 3+

to be no wonder; to be not surprising

phrase
bùzúwéilǜHSK 4+

not worth worrying about

phrase
bùzúwéiqíHSK 3+

to be commonplace and not at all surprising

phrase
bùzúwéixùnHSK 5+

not fit to serve as a model; not to be taken as an example; not an example to be followed; unauthoritative

phrase
bùbùwéiyíngHSK 5+

to advance gradually and dig in at every step; to consolidate at every step; to act cautiously

phrase
chácháwéimíngHSK 4+

to think one is discerning and shrewd for focusing on minutiae, but neglecting the bigger picture

phrase

Showing 12 of 93 idioms containing .

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

一名医生,他的职责就是病人解除痛苦。

Zuòwéi yī míng yīshēng, tā de zhízé jiùshì wèi bìngrén jiěchú tòngkǔ.

As a doctor, his duty is to relieve the suffering of patients.

百度新闻Feb 2026

小伙出售前女友送的银手镯,剪开发现内芯30克高纯..

xiǎo huǒ chū shòu qián nǚ yǒu sòng de yín shǒu 镯 , jiǎn kāi fā xiàn nèi xīn wéi kè gāo chún . .

The guy sold his ex-girlfriend to send the silver bracelet, cut open and found that the core for 30 grams of high-purity...

百度新闻Feb 2026

大年初一,浙大发顶刊论文:用人工智能膜蛋白造“装..

dà nián chū yī , zhè dà fā dǐng kān lún wén yòng rén gōng zhì néng wéi mó dàn bái zào zhuāng . .

On the first day of the Chinese New Year, ZJU published a top paper on the use of artificial intelligence for membrane proteins...

百度新闻Feb 2026

...国12月营建许可总数录得144.8万户,202..

. . . guó yuè yíng jiàn xǔ kě zǒng shǔ lù dé . mò hù , wéi . .

... The total number of building permits for December was recorded at 1.448 million, which is 202...

百度新闻Feb 2026

寒风中的暖流丨贵安新区市场监督管理局外卖骑手送去..

hán fēng zhōng de nuǎn liú 丨 guì ān xīn ōu shì chǎng jiān dū guǎn lǐ jú wéi wài mài qí shǒu sòng qù . .

Warm Current in the Cold Wind丨Gui'an New District Market Supervision Administration sends takeaway riders...

百度新闻Feb 2026

请停留3秒 这5位空军勇士献花!今天是万家团圆的..

qǐng tíng liú miǎo wéi zhè wèi kōng jūn yǒng shì xiàn huā ! jīn tiān shì mò jiā tuán yuán de . .

Please pause for 3 seconds to pay tribute to these five air force heroes! Today is a day when families gather together...

百度新闻Feb 2026

...晚的另一场“巷战”:AI挤进春节档,不止了发红..

. . . wǎn de lìng yī chǎng xiàng zhàn jǐ jìn chūn jié dǎng , bù zhǐ wéi le fā hóng . .

...Another late-night "battle": AI invades the Spring Festival box office, aiming for more than just red envelopes...

Tatoeba

什么你不来看我们?

Wèishénme nǐ bù lái kàn wǒmen?

Why don't you come visit us?

Tatoeba

什么不订些批萨呢?

Wèishénme bù dìng xiē pīsà ne?

Why don't we order pizza?

Tatoeba

什么一定要那么做?

Wǒ wèishénme yīdìngyào nàme zuò?

Why do I have to do that?

Character Family

Radical Family — Characters sharing the dot radical

Homophones — Characters pronounced wéi

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 为 (wéi) mean in Chinese?
为 (wéi) primarily means "as (in the capacity of)." It is classified as HSK Level 2, making it a beginner-level character. It ranks #18 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 为 have?
为 is written with 4 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 为?
The radical associated with 为 is 丶 (dot). This radical appears in many characters related to dot.
What are the components of 为?
为 is composed of: 丶 (structural), undefined (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿻丶⿴力丶 with a overlay layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 为?
Common words with 为 include: 因为 (yīn wèi, "because"); 为什么 (wèi shén me, "why?"); 认为 (rèn wéi, "to believe"); 为了 (wèi le, "for"); 以为 (yǐ wéi, "to think"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 为 (wéi)?
Several characters share the pronunciation wéi: 危 (danger), 微 (ancient Chinese state near present-day Chongqing), 围 (to encircle), 维 (to maintain), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 为 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 为 and the traditional form is 為.

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.