吃 — to eat; to consume; to eat at
to eat; to consume; to eat at; to eradicate; to destroy
- Pinyin
- chī
- Strokes
- 6
- HSK level
- HSK 1
- Handwriting
- recognition only
How to write 吃: 6 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.
Words with 吃 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.
- 吃chīto eat; to consume; to eat atHSK 1
- 好吃hǎochītasty; deliciousHSK 1
- 吃惊chījīngto be startled; to be shocked; to be amazedHSK 4
- 小吃xiǎochīstreet food; snackHSK 4
- 大吃一惊dàchī-yìjīngastounded; flabbergasted; taken abackHSK 6
- 吃喝玩乐chī-hē-wán-lèto eat, drink, play and be merryHSK 7–9
- 吃苦chīkǔto bear hardshipsHSK 7–9
- 吃亏chīkuīto suffer losses; to come to grief; to lose outHSK 7–9
- 吃力chīlìto entail strenuous effort; to toil at a taskHSK 7–9
- 口吃kǒuchīto stammer; to stutterHSK 7–9
- 贪吃tānchīgluttonous; voraciousHSK 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.