How to Write 泥 (ní/nì) — Meaning “Mud; clay.”

Imagine you step in water (氵) and a nun (尼) slips in the mud — the nun's robe gets dirty. This visual links the water radical and the 尼 shape to the meaning of mud.

Write the 氵 radical first: dot, dot, lift. Then write 尼: first the 尸 (horizontal, left-falling, horizontal) then 匕 (left-falling, horizontal). A common mistake is making the 尸 too wide — keep the left radical narrow and the right part balanced.

泥 has the right component 尼, which looks like a roof (尸) over a spoon (匕). 㳄 (xián) is a rare character meaning saliva, with a different right part. 汊 (chà) means a branch of a river, with right part 叉 (fork). So 泥 focuses on mud, not water channels or saliva.

泥 is commonly used in words like 泥土 (soil) and 泥泞 (muddy). Culturally, it appears in idioms like 泥菩萨过江 (a clay Buddha crossing a river) meaning one who cannot save himself. The word 泥古 uses the same character to mean blindly following the past.

Common words containing 泥 include: 泥土 (ní tǔ) — Soil; earth; mud.; 泥泞 (ní nìng) — Muddy; 泥古 (nì gǔ) — Bigoted; conservative; blindly following the past..