会意

會意
huìyì
verb HSK 7-9 #54,946

Meanings

  1. 1 to understand; to comprehend
  2. 2 ideogrammatic (type of Chinese character)

Characters

Literally 'grasp the meaning' - to understand something intuitively.

Examples

HSK 5
Tā kàn le wǒ yì yǎn, lìkè huìyì le.
He glanced at me and immediately understood.
HSK 5
「明」是一个会意字,由「日」和「月」组成。
" Míng " shì yí ge huìyì zì, yóu " rì " hé " yuè " zǔchéng.
'Ming' (明) is an ideogrammatic character, composed of 'sun' (日) and 'moon' (月).

Tips

history
会意字 (huìyìzì) is one of the six categories of Chinese characters defined by Xu Shen in the 2nd century. These characters combine two or more components whose meanings together suggest a new meaning - like 休 (person + tree = rest) or 林 (two trees = forest).

Stroke Order

会 huì
意 yì