美

Mei3
#151 most
frequent character
(bound form) the Americas (abbr. for 美洲[Mei3 zhou1])

Character breakdown

Source: Make Me a Hanzi.

美 shows a person 大 wearing a feather headdress 𦍌, so it first meant 'beautiful'. The headdress later became an empty part. From 'beautiful' the meaning grew to 'kind and good' and to 'moral goodness, good things'.

Drawn as: person seen from front; feather headdress

美 as a component in other characters

sound1 character
镁

Ask DeepSeek

Your word lists

Sign in to add this word to your private lists.