How to Write 喹 (kuí) — Meaning “quin- (chemical prefix)”

Think of a chemist saying "quin" while opening their mouth (口) wide. The right side 奎 looks like a strange "big" (大) and "jade" (圭) combination - imagine a big jade coin labeled "quin" as a chemical symbol.

Write the left part 口 first with three strokes (vertical, horizontal bottom, then right vertical). Then write the right part 奎: start with 大 (four strokes: horizontal, vertical, left-falling, right-falling), then 圭 (five strokes: horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical, horizontal). A common mistake is making the 圭 part too wide or missing the middle vertical stroke.

喹 is left-right (口 + 奎) while 哥 is top-bottom (two 可 stacked). 㕡 is extremely rare and usually a variant of another character, unlike the common chemical use of 喹. Visually, 喹 has a narrower 口 on the left, while 㕡 may have a different radical arrangement.

喹 appears only in chemical and pharmaceutical terms, never in everyday conversation. For example, 氯喹 (chloroquine) is a malaria drug, and 喹诺酮 (quinolone) is a class of antibiotics. It is a phonetic loan character, so it carries no cultural meaning beyond scientific contexts.

Common words containing 喹 include: 喹啉 (kuí lín) — quinoline; 氯喹 (lǜ kuí) — Chloroquine; 喹诺酮 (kuí nuò tóng) — quinolone.