鼻

Translingual

Stroke order

Alternative forms

The form of this character differs slightly between China and Japan:

in China: 鼻,

in Japan: 鼻

That is, in China the bottom is 丌 (strokes T-junction), while in Japan the bottom is 廾 (strokes cross).

Due to Han unification, they share the same codepoint.

Han character

See images of
Radical 209 鼻

鼻 (Kangxi radical 209, 鼻+0, 14 strokes, cangjie input 竹山田一中 (HUWML), four-corner 2644₆, composition ⿱自畀)

1. Kangxi radical #209, ⿐.

Derived characters

• Appendix:Chinese radical/鼻
• 𠏿, 嚊, 𪤨, 嬶, 𡽶, 擤, 濞, 𮥭, 𭢷, 䑄, 襣, 𦤫, 𧓧, 𧗗
• 劓, 𨞳, 𦫱, 𩕬, 𫗅, 䕗, 𢋛, 𤻖

References

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1530, character 1
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 48498
• Dae Jaweon: page 2066, character 15
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 7, page 4779, character 1
• Unihan data for U+9F3B

• Unihan data for U+2FA1C

Chinese

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 鼻
Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)
Small seal script

Phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *blids) : semantic 自 (“nose”) + phonetic 畀 (OC *pids).

自 (OC *ɦljids) originally meant “nose” but came to be used to mean “self”, so the sense of “nose” has been replaced by 鼻 (OC *blids). Some scholars interpret 鼻 (OC *blids) as a combination of a nose (自 (OC *ɦljids)) and two lungs (畀 (OC *pids)).

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bi (“nose”); compare Nuosu ꅳꁖ (hnap bbit, “nose; snot”).

Alternatively, it may be from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-brit (“sneeze; nose; swallow”), whence Tibetan སྦྲིད (sbrid, “sneeze”), but there is no trace of r in Chinese (Schuessler, 2007).

In some modern lects, including Mandarin, Gan, Jin, Wu, and Xiang, and even in the literary layer of some Min dialects, the word reflects a form with final *-t. For example, in standard Mandarin, the word is pronounced bí (implying an old entering tone) instead of bì (the expected reflex from the departing tone in Middle Chinese). This is due to a phonological phenomenon in the northwest, either an early loss of *-s in the *-ts cluster before regular final cluster simplification occurred (Baxter, 1992), or a dialectal change from *-s to *-t (Pulleybank, 1998).

Pronunciation

Definitions

鼻

1. (anatomy) nose (Classifier: 個／个 c; 支 mn)
2. nose-like object, protruding part
   1. handle
   2. pinhole
   3. (geography) cape
3. initial; founding; beginning; original

   鼻祖  ―  bízǔ  ―  forefather; initiator

4. (dialectal) nasal mucus; snot
5. (archaic or Hakka, Min) to smell
6. (Northern Min, including Songxi Northern Min, Shibei) to kiss

Synonyms

Compounds

References

• “Entry #10972”, in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2023.

Japanese

Shinjitai	鼻
Kyūjitai	鼻󠄁 鼻+󠄁? (Adobe-Japan1)
	鼻󠄃 鼻+󠄃? (Hanyo-Denshi) (Moji_Joho)
The displayed kanji may be different from the image due to your environment. See here for details.

Kanji

(grade 3 “Kyōiku” kanji)

1. nose

Readings

• Go-on: び (bi, Jōyō)
• Kan-on: ひ (hi)
• Kun: はな (hana, 鼻, Jōyō); はじめ (hajime, 鼻め)