How to Write 嘤 (yīng) — Meaning “whimper; chirp”

Imagine a baby (婴) making a tiny crying sound with its mouth (口) — that soft "ying ying" whimper is exactly what 嘤 means. The picture of a baby's open mouth helps link the character to the sound of whimpering.

嘤 has 14 strokes; the left radical 口 must be written as a small, compact square in the upper-left area. On the right, 婴 has two 贝 (shell) characters stacked, and the top 贝 must be narrower than the bottom one to keep the character balanced.

㕡 is a rare character meaning a sudden shout or a gully — it has a different right component (霍) and is not used in everyday language. 啻 (chì) means "only" or "merely" and appears in phrases like 不啻 (bùchì, no less than); unlike 嘤, both 㕡 and 啻 have no connection to whimpering or bird chirps.

嘤 is mostly used in onomatopoeic expressions like 嘤嘤 (yīng yīng) to describe soft crying or sobbing, often in online slang or comics. It also appears in literary descriptions of bird chirping, as in 嘤鸣 (yīng míng), but is not a common HSK word.

Common words containing 嘤 include: 嘤嘤 (yīng yīng) — whimpering; sobbing sound; 嘤嘤叫 (yīng yīng jiào) — to whimper; to chirp; 嘤鸣 (yīng míng) — chirping of birds.