Chinese word

碎

Pronunciation

Pinyinsuì

Meaning

  • adjectivebroken

Example

我的杯子碎了。wǒ de bēi zi suì le

My cup broke.

Illustration for 碎 (broken)

More examples

地上有很多碎的玻璃片。dì shàng yǒu hěn duō suì de bō lí piàn

There are many pieces of broken glass on the ground.

Core concept

A complete object losing its shape and becoming separate pieces or fine powder.

Common phrases

  • 碎的玻璃suì de bō lí

    broken glass

  • 碎的碗suì de wǎn

    broken bowl

Similar words

破碎pò suì: Reduced to separate pieces, with its former shape or connected parts no longer intact.
破损pò sǔn: Not fully intact because of chips, cracks, or other physical damage.

Definition in Chinese

用来表示物体破成小块或粉末、失去完整形态的状态。yòng lái biǎo shì wù tǐ pò chéng xiǎo kuài huò fěn mò shī qù wán zhěng xíng tài de zhuàng tài

Word origin

碎 (suì, "broken") combines 石 (shí, "stone"), which points to hard material that can be crushed, with 卒 (zú, "soldier"), which supplies the sound.

Usage tips

  • Chinese can use this form both for a resulting state and for the result of an action, so sentence structure shows whether an object has ended up in pieces or an actor has made it break apart.

Other meanings

  • break apartverb

Opposites

Related words

  • 碎片suì piànfragmentnoun
  • 打碎dǎ suìsmashverb
  • 粉碎fěn suìpulverizeverb

Word lists with this word