子
son / child / seed / egg / small thing / 1st earthly branch: 11 p.m.-1 a.m., midnight, 11th solar month (7th December to 5th January), year of the Rat / Viscount, fourth of five orders of nobility 五等爵位[wu3 deng3 jue2 wei4] / ancient Chinese compass point: 0° (north) / subsidiary / subordinate / sub-
子 character breakdown
one / single / a (article) / as soon as / entire; whole; all; throughout / "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1) / also pr. [yao1] for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit
Maud Younger (y) forgot her keys to the space station (Ø1), all she brought outside was her flute (一). She has no choice but to crash the door with the giant flute.
(completed action marker) / (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now) / (modal particle intensifying preceding clause)
to finish / to achieve / variant of 瞭|了[liao3] / to understand clearly
了
=
乛
+
亅
:
Mnemonic symbol from "to finish" and the shape of the character: a prize cup.
Li Qingzhao (li) is responsible for manufacturing a prize cup (了). She only needs to add a poetic engraving. Unfortunately, she suffers from a writer's block. In the aorta's living room (ao3), someone left a cryptic message engraved on the walls using a sickle (乛), which is still lying on the floor. Being an accomplished poet Li Qingzhao is able to understand the message clearly (了), realizes its poetic potential and starts to engrave it on the prize cup using a crowbar (亅).
Li Qingzhao (li) is responsible for manufacturing a prize cup (了). She only needs to add a poetic engraving. Unfortunately, she suffers from a writer's block. In the aorta's living room (ao3), someone left a cryptic message engraved on the walls using a sickle (乛), which is still lying on the floor. Being an accomplished poet Li Qingzhao is able to understand the message clearly (了), realizes its poetic potential and starts to engrave it on the prize cup using a crowbar (亅).
Characters with 子 as component
to learn / to study / to imitate / science / -ology
filial piety or obedience / mourning apparel
孝
=
⺹
+
子
:
Mnemonic symbol: a mourning veil. Marie Curie (xi) was breeding an egg (子) in the aorta's bathroom (ao4), and she even put a crown (⺹) on it (the crown is on top of the egg: 孝), so much she loved her little prince. Unfortunately the egg died, and thus Marie Curie put on her mourning veil (孝).
letter / symbol / character / word / CL:個|个[ge4] / courtesy or style name traditionally given to males aged 20 in dynastic China
字
=
子
+
宀
:
Zorro got a new task from mission control: he is to have an egg standing on its tip. Zorro thinks smart and remembers the egg of Columbus, so he puts the egg in a graduation cap as egg cup and ditches one end of the egg with a huge printing letter. Unfortunately the egg wasn't boiled and there is no gravity, so he messes up the whole bathroom. Mission control can't stop laughing since all they wanted was to fool Zorro into this trick.
good / well / proper / good to / easy to / very / so / (suffix indicating completion or readiness) / (of two people) close / on intimate terms / (after a personal pronoun) hello
good / appropriate; proper / all right! / (before a verb) easy to / (before a verb) good to / (before an adjective for exclamatory effect) so / (verb complement indicating completion) / (of two people) close; on intimate terms / (after a personal pronoun) hello
Words with 子
new emperor, new officials (idiom) / a new chief brings in new aides
to deal a single fatal blow / (fig.) to totally repudiate sb because of a minor error
lit. you cannot get fat with only one mouthful (proverb) / fig. learn to walk before you run
lit. a full bottle makes no sound; a half-filled bottle sloshes (idiom) / fig. empty vessels make the most noise