The 馬 family
馬 · mǎ · ㄇㄚˇ — horse
Know 馬 and the readings of 7 more characters follow: 嗎、媽、瑪、碼、罵、獁、螞. In traditional Chinese, most characters carry a sound component — a phonetic — and learning the phonetic once lights up its whole family. This page is that family, drawn live from the map.
The characters
One sound, many meanings: the 部首 beside each character is the other half of the pair, the part that tells them apart.
- 嗎ma · ˙ㄇㄚ部首 口 · mouthyes–no question particle (你好嗎? "are you well?")85%
- 媽mā · ㄇㄚ部首 女 · femalemom; mother85%
- 瑪mǎ · ㄇㄚˇ部首 玉 · jadeagate; cornelian94%
- 碼mǎ · ㄇㄚˇ部首 石 · rock(archaic) agate; standard weight used with a balance scale94%
- 罵mà · ㄇㄚˋ部首 罒 · netto scold; to abuse85%
- 獁mà · ㄇㄚˋ部首 犭 犬部旁 · (literary) dogmammoth85%
- 螞mǎ · ㄇㄚˇ部首 虫 · insects, wormsant; leech94%
The percentage is our computed confidence that 馬 really signals that character’s sound — scored from how closely the readings agree and how reliably 馬 predicts the sound of every character built on it. Mean for this family: 89%.
Words this family builds
- 媽媽
- 號碼
- 瑪麗
- 密碼
- 媽咪
- 爸媽
- 托馬斯
- 起碼
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