ENESFRDE中文

Characters, words, pinyin or English

甲 jiǎ armor

armor; shell; fingernails; first of the ten Heavenly Stems 十天干; shell or carapace; nail

  • HSK 5
  • 5 strokes

How it came to be

A plate of armour from the front, a cross in a frame where straps are sewn. It also counts the first of the ten stems, and shell and bone writing is named after it.

How it is used

  • Noun morpheme covering both "shell/armor" and "nail", as in 指甲 (zhǐjia) "fingernail" and 甲壳 (jiǎqiào) "shell/carapace".
  • It's also the first of the ten Heavenly Stems, used the way English uses A, B, C: 甲乙丙丁 lists items in order.
  • Very common in business/legal Chinese as 甲方 (jiǎfāng) "Party A" vs 乙方 (yǐfāng) "Party B" in a contract.
  • As a standalone word it rarely means anything on its own - you'll meet it almost always inside one of these fixed uses.

Characters built with 甲

Words with 甲

Example sentences

  • 手指甲太长了。 Shǒuzhǐjia tài cháng le.His fingernails are too long.