How to Write 萋 (qī) — Meaning “luxuriant; lush”

Picture a wife (妻) lying down on a thick patch of grass (艹), with the grass growing so lush it covers her completely. The image of grass being so dense and green that it hides a person helps you recall that 萋 means 'luxuriant' or 'lush.'

Write the grass radical 艹 as a wide horizontal stroke with two short verticals, covering the top third of the character. Below it, the 妻 part must be compact: start with a horizontal line, then a left-falling stroke that slants left, and finish with a balanced vertical stroke — avoid making the whole character too tall or narrow. Common mistake is to make the 艹 too small or the 妻 too wide, which ruins the proportion.

萋 (qī) focuses on lush vegetation, while 兹 (zī) means 'this' or 'now' and carries the 丷 component, not 妻. 苧 (zhù/ning) refers to a type of hemp plant and has a simpler lower part (宁). Visually, 萋 has the wife radical 妻 under grass, whereas 兹 and 苧 have distinct lower elements; their meanings are unrelated to 'lushness.'

萋 appears mostly in classical or poetic Chinese, often in the reduplicated form 萋萋 to describe lush green grass, as in the famous line '芳草萋萋' (fragrant grass lush and green). It is not used in everyday conversation or HSK vocabulary, so you will mostly encounter it in literature, nature poetry, or idioms like 萋斐 (slanderous words, metaphorically 'flowery but false').

Common words containing 萋 include: 萋萋 (qī qī) — lush and green (of grass); 芳草萋萋 (fāng cǎo qī qī) — The fragrant grass is lush and green.; 萋斐 (qī fěi) — slanderous; flowery but false.