Chinese Character Wiki
背

bèi, bēi

back

Phonosemantic compound. ⺼ represents the meaning and 北 represents the sound.

Components
⺼ meaning component

⺼  Meaning component

ròu

  

meat, flesh

⺼ is a component form of 肉.

北 sound component

北  Sound component

běi

  

north

北 also serves as a meaning component.

Evolution

背 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
背 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

背  

bèi

back; back side; behind; betray; the back of a body or object; to turn one's back; to hide something from; to learn by heart; to recite from memory; unlucky (slang); hard of hearing

背  

bēi

to be burdened; to carry on the back or shoulder

背 (揹) 

bēi

variant of 背[bēi]

Most common words with 背
Freq.
Word
Meaning

背

to turn one's back

背景

background

背后

behind

背叛

to betray

违背

to go against

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)

揹

Sound component in 2 characters (1 verified)

揹 褙

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*m-pˤək-s

bwojH

bèi

turn the back on

*pˤək-s

pwojH

bèi

the back


Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 58.2252% of movies

750th most common character in movies

787th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

9

Unicode

U+80CC

Shuowen

“背，也。从肉，北聲。”


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