Stroke order

Stroke order (Chinese)

Stroke order (Japan)

美 (Kangxi radical 123,羊+3, 9 strokes,cangjie input廿土大 (TGK),four-corner8043₁,composition⿱𦍌大)

• み

• 𡮔,𦎡,𫝥,𦏄,𦏒,𨷑,媄,𰌗,𥈢,𠸍,𢱒,𦝺,𣮺,𣈸,鎂(镁),𥖺,𤧞,𧶾,渼,𪹏,𮊮,𣖙,䓺,羹,𬗮,𥻙,躾,𠁍,𡎤,嵄,𬒙,𨺰,𮠻,𨸈,𬮎,𠝫,𪻄,𫖿

• Kangxi Dictionary:page 951, character 10
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 28435
• Dae Jaweon: page 1393, character 17
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 5, page 3126, character 5
• Unihan data for U+7F8E

Historical forms of the character美
Shang	Western Zhou
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions

Pictogram (象形) – a person (大) wearing a headdress (now written羊) of feathers or ram's horn.

The modern form could be considered an ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意):羊(“ram or feathers”) +大(“person”).

See also敖,冒, and免.

FromProto-Sino-Tibetan*mwaj(“beautiful, well, perfectly”) (STEDT).

According toSchuessler (2007), cognate withMizomawi(“beautiful, lovely”),Jingphomoi(“perfectly, beautifully”) as well asKarbime-(“be good”) andJingphocha mai(“good”); the former two items from *moy "beautiful" and the latter from *may "good, well", which were two roots reconstructed separately byBenedict (1972).

美

1. beautiful;pretty;attractive;good-looking

   美人  ― měirén  ―  beautiful woman

   香港的夜景真美啊！[MSC,trad. andsimp.]

   Xiānggǎng de yèjǐng zhēnměi a![Pinyin]

   Hong Kong's nightscape is sobeautiful!

2. delicious;tasty;flavoursome

   美食  ― měishí  ―  culinary delicacy

   • 膾炙與羊棗孰美？[Traditional Chinese poetry,trad.]
     脍炙与羊枣孰美？[Traditional Chinese poetry,simp.]

     From:Mencius,c. 4^th centuryBCE

     Kuàizhì yǔ yángzǎo shúměi?[Pinyin]

     Which is best, minced meat and broiled meat, or sheep-dates?

3. good;fine;satisfactory;happy

   美酒  ― měijiǔ  ―  good wine

   價廉物美／价廉物美  ― jiàliánwùměi  ―  to be attractive in price and quality

4. tobeautify; toprettify

   美容  ― měiróng  ―  toimprove one'sappearance

5. topraise; tocommend
6. (colloquial) to bepleased with oneself

   他不就是得了個一百分兒嗎？看把他美得！[MSC,trad.]
   他不就是得了个一百分儿吗？看把他美得！[MSC,simp.]

   Tā bù jiù shi dé le ge yī bǎi fēnr ma? Kàn bǎ tāměi de![Pinyin]

   Didn't he just get a one hundred percent? Look at howpleased it made him!

7. beautifulthings;beauty

   藝術美／艺术美  ― yìshùměi  ―  artistic beauty

   曲線美／曲线美  ― qūxiànměi  ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

8. short for美洲 (Měizhōu):America (asupercontinent)

   南美  ― Nánměi  ―  SouthAmerica

9. short for美國／美国 (Měiguó):America,United States (acountry inNorth America)

   美籍華人／美籍华人  ― Měi jí Huárén  ―  ChineseAmerican

   中美關係／中美关系  ― ZhōngMěi guānxì  ―  Sino-American relations

   美屬薩摩亞／美属萨摩亚  ― Měishǔ Sàmóyà  ― American Samoa

10. asurname,Mei

• (United States of America):

• “美”, in漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎^[1],香港中文大學 (theChinese University of Hong Kong),2014–
• (Cantonese)粵音資料集叢
• “美”, in教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwanese Taigi] (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien),Ministry of Education, R.O.C.,2025.
• 李如龙[Li, Ru-long],刘福铸[Liu, Fu-zhu],吴华英[Wu, Hua-ying],黄国城[Huang, Guo-cheng] (2019) “美”, in莆仙方言调查报告 [Investigation Report on Puxian Dialect] (overall work in Mandarin and Puxian Min),Xiamen University Press,→ISBN, page161.

(Third grade kyōiku kanji)

1. beauty,beautiful
2. good

• Go-on:み(mi)
• Kan-on:び(bi,Jōyō)
• Kun:うつくしい(utsukushii,美しい,Jōyō)、いい(ii,美い)、うるわしい(uruwashii,美わしい)^{←うるはしい(urufasii,美はしい,historical)}、よい(yoi,美い)、うつくしい(utsukushii,美くしい)、うまい(umai,美い)、うつくしい(utsukushii,美い)、うるわしい(uruwashii,美しい)^{←うるはしい(urufasii,美しい,historical)}、ほめる(homeru,美める)
• Nanori:はる(haru)、よし(yoshi)、よしみ(yoshimi)、り(ri)

• (Tokyo)び[bíꜜ] (Atamadaka – [1])^[1]
• IPA^(key):[bʲi]

美(び)• (bi) -na (adnominal美(び)な(bina),adverbial美(び)に(bini))

1. beautiful

美(び)• (bi) 

1. beauty

   自(し)然(ぜん)の美(び)

   shizen nobi

   beauty of nature; naturalbeauty

• IPA^(key):[mʲi]

美(み)• (mi) 

1. beauty;beautiful

美(み)• (-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

FromMiddle Chinese美 (MC mijX).

• (USA(in compounds)):
  • (SK Standard/Seoul)IPA^(key):[mi]
  • Phonetic hangul:[미]
• (beauty; good; etc.):
  • (SK Standard/Seoul)IPA^(key):[mi(ː)]
  • Phonetic hangul:[미(ː)]
    • Though still prescribed in Standard Korean, most speakers in both Koreas no longer distinguish vowel length.

KoreanWikisource has texts containing thehanja:

美

Wikisource

美 (eumhun아름다울미(areumdaul mi))

1. hanja form^? of미(“beauty;beautiful”)[noun]
2. hanja form^? of미 :America,USA (acountry inNorth America)(in compounds, in news media)
3. hanja form^? of미 :America (asupercontinent)(in compounds, in news media)

美• (Mi) (hangeul미)

1. (in headlines)short for美(미)國(국)(Miguk,“theUSA”)

   美,제안에대해긍정적입장보여

   Mi, jeane daehae geungjeongjeok ipjang boyeo

   The United States expressed a positive attitude toward the proposal.

A common convention in news headlines, this is almost always written solely in thehanja form, even in contemporary Korean text otherwise devoid of anyhanja.

• 국제퇴계학회 대구경북지부 (國際退溪學會 大邱慶北支部) (2007). Digital Hanja Dictionary,전자사전／電子字典.[2]

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. chữ Hán form ofmĩ/mỹ(“beautiful;pretty;good”)

• CJK Unified Ideographs block
• Han script characters
• Translingual lemmas
• Translingual symbols
• Han pictograms
• Han ideogrammic compounds
• Chinese terms derived from Proto-Sino-Tibetan
• Mandarin terms with audio pronunciation
• Chinese lemmas
• Mandarin lemmas
• Dungan lemmas
• Cantonese lemmas
• Taishanese lemmas
• Gan lemmas
• Hakka lemmas
• Jin lemmas
• Northern Min lemmas
• Eastern Min lemmas
• Hokkien lemmas
• Teochew lemmas
• Leizhou Min lemmas
• Puxian Min lemmas
• Southern Pinghua lemmas
• Wu lemmas
• Xiang lemmas
• Middle Chinese lemmas
• Old Chinese lemmas
• Chinese hanzi
• Mandarin hanzi
• Dungan hanzi
• Cantonese hanzi
• Taishanese hanzi
• Gan hanzi
• Hakka hanzi
• Jin hanzi
• Northern Min hanzi
• Eastern Min hanzi
• Hokkien hanzi
• Teochew hanzi
• Leizhou Min hanzi
• Puxian Min hanzi
• Southern Pinghua hanzi
• Wu hanzi
• Xiang hanzi
• Middle Chinese hanzi
• Old Chinese hanzi
• Chinese adjectives
• Mandarin adjectives
• Dungan adjectives
• Cantonese adjectives
• Taishanese adjectives
• Gan adjectives
• Hakka adjectives
• Jin adjectives
• Northern Min adjectives
• Eastern Min adjectives
• Hokkien adjectives
• Teochew adjectives
• Leizhou Min adjectives
• Puxian Min adjectives
• Southern Pinghua adjectives
• Wu adjectives
• Xiang adjectives
• Middle Chinese adjectives
• Old Chinese adjectives
• Chinese verbs
• Mandarin verbs
• Dungan verbs
• Cantonese verbs
• Taishanese verbs
• Gan verbs
• Hakka verbs
• Jin verbs
• Northern Min verbs
• Eastern Min verbs
• Hokkien verbs
• Teochew verbs
• Leizhou Min verbs
• Puxian Min verbs
• Southern Pinghua verbs
• Wu verbs
• Xiang verbs
• Middle Chinese verbs
• Old Chinese verbs
• Chinese nouns
• Mandarin nouns
• Dungan nouns
• Cantonese nouns
• Taishanese nouns
• Gan nouns
• Hakka nouns
• Jin nouns
• Northern Min nouns
• Eastern Min nouns
• Hokkien nouns
• Teochew nouns
• Leizhou Min nouns
• Puxian Min nouns
• Southern Pinghua nouns
• Wu nouns
• Xiang nouns
• Middle Chinese nouns
• Old Chinese nouns
• Chinese proper nouns
• Mandarin proper nouns
• Dungan proper nouns
• Cantonese proper nouns
• Taishanese proper nouns
• Gan proper nouns
• Hakka proper nouns
• Jin proper nouns
• Northern Min proper nouns
• Eastern Min proper nouns
• Hokkien proper nouns
• Teochew proper nouns
• Leizhou Min proper nouns
• Puxian Min proper nouns
• Southern Pinghua proper nouns
• Wu proper nouns
• Xiang proper nouns
• Middle Chinese proper nouns
• Old Chinese proper nouns
• Chinese terms with IPA pronunciation
• Chinese terms spelled with 美
• Mandarin terms with usage examples
• Literary Chinese terms with quotations
• Chinese colloquialisms
• Chinese short forms
• zh:America
• zh:Continents and continental regions
• zh:United States
• zh:Countries in North America
• Chinese surnames
• Elementary Mandarin
• Japanese kanji
• Japanese third grade kanji
• Japanese kyōiku kanji
• Japanese jōyō kanji
• Japanese kanji with goon reading み
• Japanese kanji with kan'on reading び
• Japanese kanji with kun reading うつく・しい
• Japanese kanji with kun reading い・い
• Japanese kanji with kun reading うる・わしい
• Japanese kanji with historical kun reading うる・はしい
• Japanese kanji with kun reading よ・い
• Japanese kanji with kun reading うつ・くしい
• Japanese kanji with kun reading うま・い
• Japanese kanji with kun reading うつくし・い
• Japanese kanji with kun reading うるわ・しい
• Japanese kanji with historical kun reading うるは・しい
• Japanese kanji with kun reading ほ・める
• Japanese kanji with nanori reading はる
• Japanese kanji with nanori reading よし
• Japanese kanji with nanori reading よしみ
• Japanese kanji with nanori reading り
• Japanese terms spelled with 美 read as び
• Japanese terms read with kan'on
• Japanese terms with IPA pronunciation
• Japanese terms with Atamadaka pitch accent (Tōkyō)
• Japanese lemmas
• Japanese adjectives
• Japanese terms with multiple readings
• Japanese な-na adjectives
• Japanese terms spelled with third grade kanji
• Japanese terms with 1 kanji
• Japanese terms spelled with 美
• Japanese single-kanji terms
• Japanese nouns
• Japanese terms with usage examples
• Japanese terms spelled with 美 read as み
• Japanese terms read with goon
• Japanese affixes
• Japanese suffixes
• Japanese terms with rare senses
• Japanese prefixes
• Korean terms derived from Middle Chinese
• Korean terms with long vowels in the first syllable
• Korean lemmas
• Korean hanja
• Korean hanja forms
• ko:United States
• ko:Countries in North America
• ko:America
• ko:Continents and continental regions
• Korean proper nouns
• Korean proper nouns in Han script
• Korean short forms
• Korean terms with usage examples
• Vietnamese Chữ Hán
• Vietnamese lemmas
• Vietnamese Han characters
• Vietnamese Nom