岁 (suì) is a Chinese character meaning “year of age”. It is written from 山 (mountain) and 夕 (evening), one above the other, and takes 6 strokes.
Build the character for “year of age”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
山 + 夕
Top–bottom structure
Structure from: hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph stroke inspection (上三笔 山 + 下三笔 夕，共 6 笔)
Memory aid
A mountain (山) sits above an evening (夕). The mountain never moves; evening after evening slides past below it. Count those passings and you are counting 岁 — years.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
6 strokes
In real words
- 岁数suì shuage (in years, of a person)岁 = suì
- 万岁wàn suìlong live; hurrah岁 = suì
Go deeper
All readings
year of age
year of age; year (as a unit of a person's age or of elapsed time)
年；也用作计算年龄的单位。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 岁数suì shuage (in years, of a person)岁 = suì
- 万岁wàn suìlong live; hurrah岁 = suì
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 岁 mean?
岁 (suì) means year of age; year (as a unit of a person's age or of elapsed time).
How do you pronounce 岁?
It is pronounced suì.
What parts is 岁 made of?
山 (mountain) and 夕 (evening), one above the other. The recorded source is: hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph stroke inspection (上三笔 山 + 下三笔 夕，共 6 笔). Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 岁 have?
6. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 岁?
山. 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 岁?
Common ones are 岁数 and 万岁. The reading of 岁 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.