Scholar Radical (士) — Characters, Meaning and Practice Worksheet
士 is the scholar radical. It appears in 8 of the most common Chinese characters — these 8 are the ones worth learning first, and the worksheet below gives every one of them a pinyin header, a stroke-by-stroke model and blank Tianzige grids to copy into.
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What does 士 mean?
Scholar radical · 士 shì · 3 strokes · scholar
It usually appears at the bottom or on top of the character. The Origin column below shows what each character's parts do — many take their meaning from the radical, some take their sound from the other half.
Shapes: 士
8 common characters with 士
Ranked by how often they appear in real written Chinese. Every character links to its own page with a stroke-order animation and example words.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 声 | shēng | sound, noise; voice | Simplified form of 聲; see that character for the etymology |
| 志 | zhì | ambition, aspiration; will; records | The mind 心 of a scholar 士; 士 also provides the pronunciation |
| 款 | kuǎn | money, fund; pattern, style | meaning from 欠 (owe) |
| 壮 | zhuàng | Zhuang ethnic group of Guangxi, the PRC's second most numerous ethnic… | 丬 supplies the sound |
| 吉 | jí | lucky | The words 口 of a scholar 士 |
| 垂 | chuí | to hang (down); droop; dangle; bend down; hand down; bequeath; nearly… | A tree with drooping branches |
| 壳 | ké | (coll.) shell (of an egg, nut, crab etc); case; casing; housing (of a… | A shell discarded 冗 by a soldier 士 |
| 壶 | hú | pot; classifier for bottled liquid | A jar of wine |
Related Radicals
- 口Mouth radical · kǒu134 common characters · mouth; an opening
- 囗Enclosure radical · wéi13 common characters · an enclosure; walls all around
- 土Earth radical · tǔ59 common characters · earth, soil
- 夂Follow radical · zhǐ11 common characters · to follow; to go slowly
- 夕Evening radical · xī10 common characters · evening; sunset
- 大Big radical · dà24 common characters · big, large
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