自 — Chinese character

自

zì

self; private, personal; from

Pinyin: zì
Radical: 132 ⾃ (Self)
Strokes: 6
Components: 目
Formation: pictographic — A nose; in China, people refer to themselves by pointing to their noses
Japanese: 自 as a kanji

Common words with 自

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
自己	zì jǐ	oneself; (attributive) one's own
自由	zì yóu	freedom; liberty; free; unrestricted
来自 (來自)	lái zì	to come from (a place); From: (in email header)
自然	zì rán	nature; natural
自动 (自動)	zì dòng	automatic; voluntarily
自身	zì shēn	itself; oneself
自我	zì wǒ	the self; oneself; self-; (psychology) ego
自杀 (自殺)	zì shā	to kill oneself; to commit suicide
各自	gè zì	each; respective
自从 (自從)	zì cóng	since (a time); ever since
自行	zì xíng	voluntary; autonomous
自治区 (自治區)	zì zhì qū	autonomous region – a provincial-level administrative division of China with self-governance for ethnic minorities (five in total: Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Ning

English words written with 自

自 in the Chinese classics

Occurrences: Tao Te Ching 33 · Analects 21 · Art of War 4 · I Ching 12 · Mencius 76 · Zhuangzi 209 · Great Learning 7 · Doctrine of the Mean 12

Data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.

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