八 (bā) is a Chinese character meaning “eight”. It is written from 丿 (left-falling stroke) and 乀 (right-falling stroke), side by side, and takes 2 strokes.
Build the character for “eight”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
丿 + 乀
Left–right structure
Structure from: Unicode U+516B IDS plus hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 two-stroke modern glyph inspection
Memory aid
A left-falling stroke (丿) and a right-falling stroke (乀) spread apart to form eight (八).
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
2 strokes
In real words
- 八月bā yuèAugust八 = bā
- 八个bā geeight (items)八 = bā
- 八卦bā guàthe Eight Trigrams (of the I Ching); (colloquial) gossip八 = bā
Go deeper
All readings
eight
eight; the number 8
数目八，即数字8。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 八月bā yuèAugust八 = bā
- 八个bā geeight (items)八 = bā
- 八卦bā guàthe Eight Trigrams (of the I Ching); (colloquial) gossip八 = bā
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 八 mean?
八 (bā) means eight; the number 8.
How do you pronounce 八?
It is pronounced bā.
What parts is 八 made of?
丿 (left-falling stroke) and 乀 (right-falling stroke), side by side. The recorded source is: Unicode U+516B IDS plus hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 two-stroke modern glyph inspection. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 八 have?
2. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 八?
八. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 八?
Common ones are 八月 and 八个. The reading of 八 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.