吃亏

吃亏 chīkuī

Suffers a loss

吃亏 in a sentence HSK 5 繁體 吃虧 chikui

What 吃亏 means

  1. Suffers a loss

These meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the Chinese to Pinyin translator and the Chinese to English translator, so a whole sentence containing 吃亏 will read it the same way this page does.

Recognise a piece of 吃亏 but not the character it belongs to? Pick the parts in the component character finder and it will name the character for you — free for every character, with nothing to sign in to.

Character by character

吃亏 is written with 2 characters. Chinese words are usually easier to remember once you can see what each part contributes.

吃
chī
Eat
亏
kuī
Owes (deficit - deficiency)

How to write 吃亏

Stroke order is not decoration — it is what makes handwriting legible and what dictionary lookup by stroke count depends on.

Practise 吃亏 on printable 田字格 sheets, trace it in the writing practice tool, or watch any other character in the Stroke Order Animator.

吃亏 in a sentence

太老实有时候会吃亏。
Tài lǎoshi yǒu shíhou huì chīkuī.
Being too honest can sometimes cost you.
这次买卖我们吃亏了。
Zhè cì mǎimai wǒmen chīkuī le.
We lost out on this deal.

Every sentence on this site that uses 吃亏 is collected on the 吃亏 sentence page. Want pinyin above a sentence of your own? Paste it into the Pinyin Annotator.

Questions about 吃亏

What does 吃亏 mean in English?

吃亏 is pronounced chīkuī and means Suffers a loss.

How do you pronounce 吃亏?

吃亏 is chīkuī in pinyin — written chikui without tone marks. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice.

What are the characters in 吃亏?

吃亏 is written with 2 characters: 吃 (chī) Eat, 亏 (kuī) Owes (deficit - deficiency). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.

How is 吃亏 written in traditional Chinese?

吃虧. The simplified form 吃亏 is used in mainland China and Singapore; 吃虧 is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Both are pronounced chīkuī.

Is 吃亏 an HSK word?

Yes — 吃亏 is on the official HSK 5 vocabulary list. You can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 5 page.

Studied around the same time

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