买買 mǎi — to buy, to purchase
mǎi (third tone, dipping)
Traditional: 買
to buy, to purchase
6 strokesRadical 乙Frequency #463
Pinyin
- mǎi (third tone, dipping)
to buy, to purchase
Character breakdown
Ideographic description
⿱乛头The sequence reads left to right and describes how the parts are arranged.
- 乛shape partno entry yetA single hooked stroke — all that is left of 网, the net drawn across the top of the traditional 買.
- 头shape partno entry yetNot the word "head". These strokes stand in for 貝, the cowrie shell — money — that filled the bottom of 買.
Mnemonic
The traditional 買 is a net 网 above cowrie shells 貝: gathering money in, which is what a buyer does with goods. Simplification threw away both pictures, so 买 has no radical worth filing it under — the entry leaves the field empty rather than pretend otherwise. Learn it against its partner: 买 mǎi third tone is to buy, 卖 mài fourth tone is to sell, and the tone is the only thing between them.
A memory aid written by HSK Guide editors. It is not an etymology and does not describe the historical origin of the character.