How to Write 旆 (pèi) — Meaning “banner, flag”

Imagine a flagpole (the left side 方) with a long, flowing piece of cloth attached, and the right side 㫃 looks like the cloth waving with a little curl at the top. You can think of the phrase 'party flag'—the '方' reminds you of a square flag, and the '㫃' adds the motion. This visual of a waving banner will help you recall 旆.

Write the left radical 方 first: dot, horizontal, left-falling stroke, then hook. Then write the right part 㫃: a horizontal stroke, followed by a left-falling stroke and a right-falling stroke, and finally a small upward stroke. A common mistake is making the right side too narrow or forgetting the small upward stroke at the end—this little stroke represents the tail of the banner.

旆 (pèi) specifically means a long, silk banner attached to a staff. 施 (shī) has the same left radical 方 but the right side is 也, meaning 'to carry out' or 'to bestow'—it has no flag meaning. 斿 (yóu) also uses the left radical 方 but replaces the right with a variant of 游, meaning 'to wander' or 'a streamer on a flag'. In short, only 旆 directly refers to the physical banner itself.

旆 is rarely used in everyday speech and appears mainly in classical literature, poetry, or historical texts describing ancient military banners. For example, in the idiom 旌旆蔽日 (jīng pèi bì rì), it means 'banners hiding the sun', evoking a grand army scene. Modern Chinese speakers might encounter it in traditional calligraphy or when reading ancient poems, but it is not part of the common HSK vocabulary.

Common words containing 旆 include: 旌旆 (jīng pèi) — flags and banners; 旗旆 (qí pèi) — Banners and flags.; 旆影 (pèi yǐng) — the shadow of a banner.