Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced kui

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced kui, including 亏 kuī, 溃 kuì, 愧 kuì. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words, and example sentences.

How to Pronounce This Syllable

For kui, push a small puff of air on k, join it to ui, and hold the tone over the whole syllable.

Initial k

Start the syllable on the initial k, then run straight into the final ui — keep them joined instead of sounding out separate English letters.

Final ui

Settle the final ui into a steady mouth shape first, then lay the tone on top.

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (亏 kuī, 溃 kuì, 愧 kuì) and lock in their tones. 3 common characters share the sound kui, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

kui turns up here with 2 different tones; a change of tone usually means a different character, so the groups below are split by tone.

1st tone

Taking the 1st tone here: 亏 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

亏kuīdeficiency; deficit

4th tone

Taking the 4th tone here: 溃, 愧 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

溃kuìbe dispersed; break down 愧kuìashamed

Common Words With This Sound

Seeing kui inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.

幸亏xìng kuīfortunately; luckily 多亏duō kuīthanks to; luckily 吃亏chī kuīto suffer losses; to come to grief; to lose out; to get the worst of it 崩溃bēng kuìto collapse; to crumble; to fall apart 溃军kuì jūnrouted troops 溃决kuì jué(of a dike or dam) to burst 惭愧cán kuìashamed 不愧bù kuìto be worthy of; to deserve to be called; to prove oneself to be 羞愧xiū kuìashamed

Characters

3 common characters in this group.

Character#1 亏 kuīdeficiency; deficitTraditional: 虧 Character#2 溃 kuìbe dispersed; break downTraditional: 潰 Character#3 愧 kuìashamedTraditional: 媿