What does 什 mean in Chinese?

什 (shén) means "what" in Chinese. The new HSK exam expects you to recognise it at HSK 1.

How do you write 什?

什 is written with 4 strokes, starting from the 亻 (person) radical and following standard Chinese stroke order (top to bottom, left to right). See the interactive stroke-order tool for the full animation.

What is the radical of 什?

The radical of 什 is 亻 (person, Kangxi radical #9). Other common HSK characters using the same radical include 作, 保, 体, 信.

How many strokes does 什 have?

The Chinese character 什 has 4 strokes.

What HSK level is 什?

On the new HSK exam syllabus, 什 is a character to recognise at HSK 1 and to write by hand at HSK 2 (the handwriting list HSK 1 and 2 share).

什 (shén): Meaning, Stroke Order, Radical & Examples

什

shén

what

HSK 1 character 4 strokes Radical: 亻 (person)

Quick Answer

什 (shén) means "what" with 4 strokes, radical 亻 (person), HSK 1 on the new exam.

Full dictionary entry for 什 →Animated stroke-order for 什 →

Pronunciation

shén

Meaning

Primary: what

Etymology

Oracle-bone origin

什 is a phono-semantic compound formed relatively late, combining 亻 (person radical) with 十 (ten) as both semantic and phonetic element. It was not pictographic in origin. The earliest attested meaning was a military unit of ten soldiers or a household group of ten families, reflecting the 十 component directly.

Form evolution

什 does not appear in oracle bone script. Bronze and seal forms show the standard 人 + 十 composition. Clerical script converted the left 人 into the modern 亻 radical form, and the character has remained visually stable since then with no simplification needed.

How the meaning evolved

From the original 'unit of ten' sense it extended to mean 'assorted' or 'miscellaneous', as in 什物 (sundries). In this meaning it is read shí. The reading shén is a much later colloquial development, appearing in the interrogative 什么 (what), which arose in Tang-era vernacular and has no etymological connection to the 'ten' sense.

Cultural note

Learners often assume 什 is an ancient question word, but 什么 is a sound-loan: the characters were chosen for their northern pronunciation in medieval Chinese, not their meaning. The older literary word for 'what' is 何, which is why classical texts use 何 and modern speech uses 什么.