自 zì from; self; oneself

Made up of [丶 zhǔ dot radical 3, 目 mù eye radical 109]
Made with 6 strokes.
In China one used to point to one's face to indicate 'oneself' so the character 'eye' is used with a dot on top
Ancient small seal form Small seal

Related characters


Also uses 丶 zhǔ component: 白 bái (bright) 半 bàn (half) ; 冰 bīng (ice) ; 弟 dì (younger brother) ; 兑 duì (to cash) ; 丽 lì (beautiful) ; 良 liáng (good) ; 令 lìng (to order) ; 铺 pù (store) ; 勺 sháo (spoon) ; 术 shù (method) ; 苏 sū (revive) ; 太 tài (too) ; 往 wǎng (towards) ; 为 wèi (do) ; 乌 wū (crow) ; 义 yì (justice) ; 尤 yóu (outstanding) ; 玉 yù (jade) ; 州 zhōu (prefecture) ; 住 zhù (to live) ; 主 zhǔ (owner)
Also uses 目 mù component: 德 dé (virtue) 盾 dùn (shield) ; 睛 jīng (eye) ; 看 kàn (look) ; 冒 mào (to emit) ; 面 miàn (face) ; 盼 pàn (to hope for) ; 算 suàn (calculate) ; 相 xiāng (each other) ; 直 zhí (straight)

Sounds same

字 zì (letter)

Different tone

子 zǐ (child)

Radical

Index 132 used in: 首 shǒu (head) ; 夏 xià (summer)

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Pronunciation

Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License

stroke order for 自
Stroke order for character 自, kindly provided under Wikimedia creative commons license ➚

Cities

自贡 Zigong, Sichuan

Proverbs

蜡烛照亮别人,却毁灭了自己 là zhú zhào liàng bié rén, què huǐ miè le zì jǐ Helping others at the cost of not looking after yourself
习惯成自然 xí guàn chéng zì rán Habit becomes engrained
自高自大 zì gāo zì dà Full of conceit and ego
自愧弗如 zì kuì fú rú Ashamed of oneself
自我陶醉 zì wǒ táo zuì Conceited and arrogant
自相矛盾 zì xiāng máo dùn To speak in contradictions. The story ➚ is about the man who said he had a spear that could pierce anything in the world, but also a shield that was impenetrable to any spear. Both claims could not be true