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FrequencyVery common — roughly in the top 400 most frequent characters.
節 originally means the joint or segment of a bamboo stalk, and from there it spread to almost anything that comes in segments or marks a division: festivals (the joints of the year), sections of a text, periods of class, rhythm, and body joints. It also carries the sense of 'keep within limits', hence 節約 'economize' and 氣節 'moral integrity'. A learner meets it first in 春節 (Spring Festival), 節日 (holiday) and 季節 (season), and very early as the measure word for school lessons: 一節課.
Mandarinjié · ㄐㄧㄝˊ
Cantonesezit3 · jit
In Mandarin there is a colloquial reading jiē, used almost only in 節骨眼兒 (jiēguyǎnr, 'critical moment'). Cantonese has just the one reading zit3.
nounjoint or segment of bamboo; by extension a joint of the body (關節)
nounfestival, holiday (春節, 中秋節)
nounsection, part, division (章節, 細節); rhythm or beat (節奏)
measure wordfor class periods, sections of text, segments of a train or pipe: 兩節課, 三節車廂
verbto economize, to restrain, to keep within limits (節約, 節制)
nounmoral integrity, principled conduct (氣節, 貞節)
Other pronunciations
jiē · zit3 only in 節骨眼兒 jiēguyǎnr, 'the crucial juncture'; also in 節子 jiēzi, a knot in wood
How it is built
phono-semantic
Radical 竹. bamboo.
⺮ (竹)meaning bamboo — the original sense is the joint of a bamboo stalk
即sound phonetic; 即 jí / zik1 is close to jié / zit3
Origin
節 is a straightforward phono-semantic character: bamboo 竹 on top for meaning, 即 below for sound. It is attested in bronze and seal script (the simpler 卩/卪 element in 即 is itself a picture of a kneeling person, but that has no bearing on the meaning here). From 'bamboo joint' the word extended naturally to anything jointed or divided — body joints, sections of writing, divisions of the year, and then the festivals that mark those divisions, and finally the abstract idea of holding oneself within bounds. The simplified 节 drops 竹 to the grass top 艹 and keeps only the lower part 卩 of the phonetic; this abbreviation comes from long-standing handwritten and cursive practice, not from a separate ancient character.
Remembering it
Bamboo (⺮) grows in segments, and each segment ends at a joint — that is the whole character. The year is segmented too, which is why 節 means 'festival'; and a lesson is a segment of the school day, 一節課. In the simplified 节 the bamboo top has been clipped down to a grass top.
Words using it
春节chūnjié · ceon1 zit3Spring Festival, Chinese New Year
节/節 is a very productive measure word: 一节课 'one class period', 三节车厢 'three train carriages', 两节电池 'two batteries'. Festival names almost always end in it (国庆节, 母亲节, 圣诞节), so recognising 節 at the end of a name tells you it is a holiday. In Cantonese it is zit3 throughout: 過節 gwo3 zit3 'celebrate a festival', 節目 zit3 muk6. Note that 节 alone rarely stands as a word in modern speech — use it in compounds.
Context
Because bamboo grows in clean, upright joints, 節 became a metaphor for moral firmness: 氣節 'integrity', 守節 'keeping one's principles (historically, a widow's chastity)', and the praise 高風亮節. The twenty-four 節氣 (jiéqì) solar terms that structure the traditional agricultural calendar use the same character, again in the sense of segments of the year.
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