美

See also: 菐 and 実
美 U+7F8E, 美
CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-7F8E
← 羍
[U+7F8D] 		CJK Unified Ideographs 羏 →
[U+7F8F]

Translingual
Stroke order (Japan)
Stroke order

Han character

美 (radical 123, 羊+3, 9 strokes, cangjie input 廿土大 (TGK), four-corner 80431, composition ⿱𦍌大)

Descendants

References
  • KangXi: page 951, character 10
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 28435
  • Dae Jaweon: page 1393, character 17
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 5, page 3126, character 5
  • Unihan data for U+7F8E

Chinese
simp. and trad.
 美
variant forms 媄
羙

Glyph origin
Characters in the same phonetic series (美) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
美 *mriʔ
渼 *mriʔ
媄 *mriʔ

Pictogram (象形) : 羊 (“goat, sheep or feathers”) + 大 (“person”) – a person with a headdress of feathers or ram's horn; sometimes considered as an ideogrammic compound (會意).

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *mway (“beautiful, well, perfectly”) (STEDT).

According to Schuessler (2007), cognate with Mizo mawi (“beautiful, lovely”), Jingpho moi  (“perfectly, beautifully”) as well as Karbi me- (“be good”) and Jingpho t͡ʃə³³-mai³³ (“good”); the former two items from *moy "beautiful" and the latter from *may "good, well", which were two roots reconstructed separately by Benedict (1972).

Pronunciation
Note:
  • mui2 - literary;
  • bhuê2 - vernacular.
Rime
Character 美
Reading # 1/1
Initial (聲) 明 (4)
Final (韻) 脂 (17)
Tone (調) Rising (X)
Openness (開合) Open
Division (等) Chongniu III
Fanqie 無鄙切
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang		 /mˠiɪX/
Pan
Wuyun		 /mᵚiX/
Shao
Rongfen		 /miɪX/
Edwin
Pulleyblank		 /mjiX/
Li
Rong		 /mjiX/
Wang
Li		 /miX/
Bernard
Karlgren		 /miX/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex		 mǐ
Baxter–Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character 美
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin)		 měi
Middle
Chinese		 ‹ mijX ›
Old
Chinese		 /*[m]rəjʔ/
English beautiful

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter–Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character 美
Reading # 1/1
No. 8951
Phonetic
component		 美
Rime
group		 脂
Rime
subdivision		 2
Corresponding
MC rime		 美
Old
Chinese		 /*mriʔ/
Notes 甲文象大人首插翎羽表美觀，
取陳獨秀說

Definitions

美

  1. beautiful; pretty; attractive; good-looking
    美人  ―  měirén  ―  beautiful woman
  2. delicious; tasty; flavoursome
    美食  ―  měishí  ―  culinary delicacy
  3. good; fine; satisfactory; happy
  4. to beautify; to prettify
    美容  ―  měiróng  ―  to improve one's appearance
  5. to praise; to commend
  6. (dialectal) to be pleased with oneself
    他不就是得了個一百分兒嗎？看把他美得！ [dialectal Mandarin, trad.]
    他不就是得了个一百分儿吗？看把他美得！ [dialectal Mandarin, simp.]
    Tā bù jiù shi dé le ge yī bǎi fēnr ma? Kàn bǎ tā měi de! [Pinyin]
    (please add an English translation of this example)
  7. beautiful things; beauty
  8. Short for 美洲 (Měizhōu, “America (continent)”).
  9. Short for 美國／美国 (Měiguó, “United States of America”).
  10. A surname​. Mei

Compounds
Derived terms from 美

Japanese

Kanji
美

(grade 3 “Kyōiku” kanji)

  1. beauty; beautiful

Readings

Compounds
Derived terms

Affix

美 (hiragana び, rōmaji bi)

  1. beauty; beautiful

Noun

美 (hiragana び, rōmaji bi)

  1. beauty
    自 (し)然 (ぜん)の美 (び)
    shizen no bi
    beauty of nature; natural beauty

Affix

美 (hiragana み, rōmaji mi)

  1. beauty; beautiful

Suffix

美 (hiragana み, rōmaji -mi)

  1. suffix used by female given names, such as 奈美(なみ, Nami), 恵美(えみ, Emi; めぐみ, Megumi), 宏美(ひろみ, Hiromi)
  2. (rare) suffix used by male given names

Korean

Hanja

美 • (mi) (hangeul 미, McCune–Reischauer mi, Yale mi)

  1. the USA, the Americas (in compounds, in news media)
  2. beautiful

Compounds
Derived terms

Vietnamese

Han character

美: Hán Việt readings: mỹ[1][2], mĩ[3]
美: Nôm readings: mẻ[2][3][4], mẹ[1][2], mỹ[1][2], mẽ[1][4], mỉa[1][4], mở[1], mỉ[3], mĩ[4]

  1. Hán tự form of mĩ/mỹ (“beautiful; pretty; good”).

Compounds

References
  1. Nguyễn (2014).
  2. Nguyễn et al. (2009).
  3. Trần (2004).
  4. Taberd & Pigneau de Béhaine (1838).
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