Chinese Character Wiki
乙

yǐ, zhé

second

Depicts a stream of water.

Evolution

乙 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
乙 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
乙 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
乙 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
乙 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

乙  

yǐ

second; 2nd heavenly stem; second of the ten Heavenly Stems 十天干[shí​tiān​gān]; second in order; letter "B" or Roman "II" in list "A, B, C", or "I, II, III" etc; second party (in legal contract, usually 乙方[yǐ​fāng], as opposed to 甲方[jiǎ​fāng]); ethyl; bent; winding; radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 5); ancient Chinese compass point: 105°

乙  

zhé

turning stroke (in Chinese characters); see also 折[zhé]

Most common words with 乙
Freq.
Word
Meaning

乙

ethyl

乙醇

ethanol C2H5OH

乙肝

hepatitis B

乙烯

ethylene

聚乙烯

polythene

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

乶 氹

Sound component in 6 characters (3 verified)

艺 亿 忆 虱 钇 穵

Unknown component in 1 character (1 verified)

乾

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*qrət

'it

yǐ

2nd heavenly stem


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 2.0823% of movies

2822nd most common character in movies

1872nd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

1

Unicode

U+4E59

Shuowen

“乙，象春艸木冤曲而出，陰氣尚彊，其出乙乙也。與丨同意，乙承甲，象人頸。”


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License