Chinese Characters Starting with "M start"

Every character has an origin. Discover the pictographs, myths, and history behind each Chinese character — with pinyin, stroke order, HSK level, and audio pronunciation.

This 'power' character began as a silk cloth drape

míng

Born from a buried sun under water and roof, 冥 is

This 'deep' character isn't about depth — it's ab

This two-stroke 'cover' radical isn’t a word — i

miǎn

This 'crown' isn’t worn—it’s a suspended moral

mǎo

This 'zero-stroke' character doesn't exist in anci

miǎn

This character looks like a person avoiding duty

miǎn

This character looks like a person leaning in — a

móu

This elegant 8-stroke character looks like a perso

mén

This 21-stroke character hides three mountains in

miē

A two-stroke Cantonese rebel — born from scribble

miǎn

A four-stroke architectural haiku: one horizontal

mài

This 'element' character hides a bird (鳥) — not

míng

Born as a bird’s call in oracle bones, 鸣 evolved

Born from Buddhist Sanskrit ‘māra’, this 20-str

míng

Born on bronze ritual vessels 3,000 years ago, 铭

mài

Though it looks like '10,000 walking', 迈 is actua

miù

Thirteen strokes of tangled logic: 谬 isn’t just

Its right side 迷 literally means 'lost in rice'

móu

Its left side is 'speech', its right side means 'n

This 'seeking' character began as a claw digging i

mán

A ‘barbarian’ character that shed its stigma to

miǎo

A 17-stroke 'grass radical' character that weaponi

màn

Its 14 strokes literally trace a vine’s path — a

miè

A grass radical (艹) crowns a weapon-like stroke

méng

This character began as a pictograph of plants bur

Born as a sunset pictograph — two plants swallowi

máng

Though it looks like 'grass' plus 'busy', 茫 actua

mào

Its lower half hides the character for 'hair' (毛)

máng

This six-stroke grass-top character started as a l

This ‘membrane’ character hides a poetic paradox

mài

Though it looks like it contains 'hair' (髟), 脉 i

This 16-stroke stone-radical character began as a

mán

This 'eye' character doesn’t mean seeing — it’s

miáo

Though it means 'to aim,' 瞄 isn’t about weapons

This 'amicable' character hides an ancient truth:

Though it looks like ‘eye + rice’, 眯 was born f

máng

This character began as an eye crossed with an 'X'

méng

This character’s ‘vessel’ radical (皿) isn’t d

měng

Its radical shows a dog — but the top part isn’t