熹 (xī): bright, warm

熹 (xī) is a Chinese character meaning “bright.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 喜 (phonetic) and 灬 (semantic). It ranks #4892 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 熹 fire. Its radical form 火 (fire) appears in many related characters such as 火 (huǒ, fire), 烟 (yān, smoke), 烧 (shāo, to burn, to cook).

Spoken pronunciation
Radical: 火 fire16 strokesFrequency #4892喜 phonetic灬 semantic

Definitions

  1. bright
  2. warm

Etymology & Origin

熹

pictophoneticfire

Decomposition: ⿱喜灬 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:喜phonetic灬semantic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
熹平石经xī píng shí jīngXiping steles, calligraphic work on carved steles of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD)
明熹宗míng xī zōngMing Xizong, temple name of fifteenth Ming emperor Tianqi 明天啟|明天启
朱熹zhū xīZhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200), also known as Master Zhu 朱子, Song dynasty Confucian writer and propagandist,...
3
Total compounds
33
As first character
33
As last character
33
As middle character

熹 appears in 3 compound words: 33 as the first character, 33 as the last, and 33 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 熹 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

炎yán
0.67510 co-occurrences
明míng
0.41311 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

中国新闻网·文化Aug 2026

从南孔儒学到徽学，从朱熹理学到阳明心学，深厚的文化底蕴为这条路赋予了独特的人文气质。

cóng nán kǒng rú xué dào huī xué , cóng zhū xī lǐ xué dào yáng míng xīn xué , shēn hòu de wén huà dǐ yùn wéi zhè tiáo lù fù yǔ le dú tè de rén wén qì zhì .

From the Confucianism of the Southern Kong School to Huizhou School, and from Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism to Wang Yangming’s School of Mind, this road’s profound cultural heritage has endowed it with a unique humanistic character.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 灬 (fire) component

然rán点diǎn照zhào热rè烈liè熟shú熬áo煮zhǔ煎jiān熏xūn

Related Characters

火huǒ烟yān烧shāo烤kǎo灯dēng炮pào炸zhà炒chǎo炖dùn爆bào

Homophones — Characters pronounced xī

嬉xī

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 熹 (xī) mean in Chinese?
熹 (xī) primarily means "bright." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #4892 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 熹 and 暧?
熹 (xī) and 暧 (ài) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 熹 (bright) vs 暧 (dim).
How many strokes does 熹 have?
熹 is written with 16 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 熹?
The radical associated with 熹 is 火 (fire). This radical appears in many characters related to fire.
What are the components of 熹?
熹 is composed of: 喜 (phonetic), 灬 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱喜灬 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 熹?
Common words with 熹 include: 熹平石经 (xī píng shí jīng, "Xiping steles, calligraphic work on carved steles of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD)"); 明熹宗 (míng xī zōng, "Ming Xizong, temple name of fifteenth Ming emperor Tianqi 明天啟|明天启"); 朱熹 (zhū xī, "Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200), also known as Master Zhu 朱子, Song dynasty Confucian writer and propagandist,..."). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 熹 (xī)?
Several characters share the pronunciation xī: 嬉 (amusement). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 熹 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 熹 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 熹 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.