How to Write 櫆 (kuí) — Meaning “Kui tree (a type of hardwood tree)”

Imagine a ghost (鬼) sitting in a tree (木) — that ghost is the spirit of the Kui tree. You can also think of the sound "kwee" like a ghostly whisper coming from the tree, linking the shape to the meaning.

The left part 木 is written first with standard stroke order: horizontal, vertical, left stroke, right stroke. The right part 鬼 has 9 strokes; a common mistake is adding an extra dot or mixing the order of the left sweep and the final dot. Practice writing 鬼 separately to avoid errors.

櫆 (kuí) has the right component 鬼 (ghost), while 樨 (xī) has 犀 (rhino) and means sweet osmanthus, and 樵 (qiáo) has 焦 (burn) and means firewood or woodcutter. Visually, 櫆's right side is more complex with a tall horizontal dash at the top, unlike the others.

櫆 is extremely rare in modern Chinese and is not part of the HSK vocabulary. It appears mainly in classical botanical texts or historical references to a specific hardwood tree called the Kui tree, and is sometimes used in poetic or literary descriptions of ancient forests.

Common words containing 櫆 include: 櫆木 (kuí mù) — Kui wood; 櫆树 (kuí shù) — Kui tree; 櫆子 (kuí zi) — fruit of the Kui tree.