variant of 是[shi4] / (used in given names)
to be (followed by substantives only) / correct; right; true / (respectful acknowledgement of a command) very well / (adverb for emphatic assertion)

= + : Mnemonic symbol: a skull, from "to be or not to be".

Sherlock Holmes (sh) starts his day in the space station's bathroom (Ø4) with a mug of coffee (旦). Holding a skull (mnemonic symbol for 是) in his hands, he asks himself "to be, or not to be" (是). He wonders if he can make the skull come back to life using lots of coffee, and injects coffee from his mug into the skull using a syringe (龰).

= + + : Mnemonic symbol: a skull, from "to be or not to be".

Sherlock Holmes (sh) watches the Neanderthal Man (人) trying to climb to the sun (日) on a ladder (下) in the space station's bathroom (Ø4). Sherlock is afraid that he'll open the window, so he puts on a big skull (是) and scares him off.

是 character breakdown

down / downwards / below / lower / later / next (week etc) / second (of two parts) / to decline / to go down / to arrive at (a decision, conclusion etc) / measure word to show the frequency of an action

= + : Mnemonic symbol: from the up/down logic, and a little bit the shape of the character, a ladder.

Xi Shi (xi) is on a retreat in the ashram. Using a voodoo staff (卜), she divined that next (下) week she'll have to play the flute (一) sixteen hours per day. Because she hates playing the flute, she climbs over the ashram's bathroom (a4) wall using a ladder (下) to escape.
abbr. for 日本[Ri4 ben3], Japan
sun / day / date, day of the month

= + : Robinson Crusoe (r) is hiding from the sun (日) in an enclosure (囗) full of flutes (一) in the space station's bathroom (Ø4).
dawn / morning / daybreak / day / dan, female roles in Chinese opera (traditionally played by specialized male actors)

= + : Mnemonic symbol: A big mug, since many people start the day with a mug of coffee.

Don Quixote (d) meets the sun (日) early in the morning (旦) in the anthill's bathroom (an4). Don Quixote is full of energy and can't wait to start into a new adventure, but since the sun is a morning grouch who only just started drinking her mug of coffee (mnemonic symbol for 旦) she cannot stand it and beats him over the head with a flute (一) to calm him a bit down.
Character component without intrinsic meaning

= + : Neanderthal man (人) accidentally pierced his foot with a pennant (⺊). Now he'll have to get an injection against tetanus. This character will thus be represented by a syringe.
person; people / CL:個|个[ge4],位[wei4]

= 丿 + : Mnemonic symbol: Neanderthal Man (人). Robinson Crusoe (r-) is looking for snacks in the encampment's kitchen (-en2) when he suddenly spots Neanderthal Man (人). Neanderthal Man offers him a banana (丿), but Robinson Crusoe doesn't trust the present and pokes it with a finger (㇏).

Characters with 是 as component

spoon / key
spirited horse
a kind of hawk

Words with 是

in other words / that is to say / so / thus
fault / blame
no / is not / not
equivalent to either 是[shi4] or 就是[jiu4 shi4]
it doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black; as long as it catches mice it's a good cat (variant of a Sichuanese saying used in a speech by Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平|邓小平[Deng4 Xiao3 ping2] in 1962, usually associated with his economic reforms starting in 1978, in which pragmatism was favored over ideological purity)
to be upset / to feel disgusted
see 不像話|不像话[bu4 xiang4 hua4]
lit. either the fish dies or the net gets torn (idiom) / fig. it's a life-and-death struggle / it's either him or me

Sentences with 是

zhe̅n
shì
sǎo
xìng
de
hěn
na
Comments

Mad props to liakad for uploading the green skull to https://openclipart.org/detail/4660/greenskull

Matthias, over 1 year ago