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只 — classifier for birds and certain animals

classifier for birds and certain animals; one of a pair

Pinyin
zhī · zhǐ
Strokes
5
HSK level
HSK 1
Handwriting
recognition only

This character has more than one reading — zhī, zhǐ — and the pronunciation depends on the word it appears in. The list below gives the syllabus reading for each word.

How to write 只: 5 strokes

Each cell adds one stroke to the previous ones, with the new stroke in red. Stroke order is not decoration: it sets the proportions of the character and makes handwriting legible to a reader. The syllabus asks you to recognise this character rather than write it by hand.

只 — 5 strokes, in writing order from left to right.

Build a printable practice sheet with 只

Words with 只 in the HSK syllabus: 11

Every word in the official 2026 syllabus that contains this character, with the level it is introduced at. Learning a character pays off through these: each one combines with the characters you already know.

  1. 只zhīonly; merely; justHSK 1
  2. 只zhǐonly; merely; justHSK 3
  3. 只能zhǐ néngcan only; obliged to do sth; to have no other choiceHSK 3
  4. 只是zhǐshìmerely; only; just; nothing but; simplyHSK 3
  5. 只要zhǐyàoso long as; provided; ifHSK 3
  6. 只有zhǐyǒuonly have ...; there is only ...; it is only if ...HSK 3
  7. 只好zhǐhǎoto have no other option but to ...; to have to; to be forced toHSK 4
  8. 船只chuánzhīship; boat; vesselHSK 6
  9. 只得zhǐdéto have no alternative but to; to be obliged toHSK 6
  10. 只顾zhǐgùto focus solely on; to pay attention only to; to be preoccupied withHSK 6
  11. 只管zhǐguǎnsolely engrossed in one thing; just; simplyHSK 7–9

Glosses come from CC-CEDICT, used under CC BY-SA 4.0, and are the dictionary’s first sense rather than a translation chosen for context.