How to Write 呫 (tiè) — Meaning “to whisper / to taste”

Imagine your mouth (口) whispering a secret to a fortune teller (占), because fortune tellers use divination to get a "taste" of the future. The whisper sound "tiè tiè" matches the character's reading. This links whispering, tasting, and the components together.

The left mouth radical 口 should be small and placed in the upper-left area, not too large. The right part 占 is made of 卜 (a vertical stroke and a dot) on top of another 口; be careful to write the dot after the vertical stroke. A common mistake is making the left 口 too big or mixing up the dot position.

呫 uses the right component 占 (卜+口), while 吁 uses 于 (a horizontal and vertical hook) and 吂 uses 亡 (a dot and a horizontal with a hook). Their meanings differ: 呫 means "to whisper" or "to taste," 吁 means "to sigh" or "shush," and 吂 is rare but relates to unclear speech. Visually, you can remember 占 looks like a fortune-teller's symbol.

呫 is extremely rare and not part of the HSK vocabulary. It appears mostly in classical or literary texts, such as the reduplicated form 呫呫 (tiè tiè) describing a whispering sound. Modern Chinese speakers will almost never encounter this character except in dictionaries or specialized historical writing.

Common words containing 呫 include: 呫呫 (tiè tiè) — whispering sound; 呫 (tiè) — to whisper / to taste.