乙 yǐ second

源How it came to be

One stroke bending twice on the way down, and nobody agrees what of. Some see a flying swallow, some a crooked sprout. Borrowed for the second of the ten stems, it lost its picture.

用How it is used

• Bound character meaning "second", the second of the ten heavenly stems (甲乙丙丁..., functioning like A, B, C, D).
• Its main real-world use is in formal contracts and lists: 乙方 (yǐfāng, "Party B"), paired with 甲方 (jiǎfāng, "Party A").
• Outside these fixed formal slots, 乙 carries little independent meaning for a learner to worry about.

字Characters built with 乙

• 艺 art
• 忆 to remember
• 亿 hundred million
• 挖 to dig