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Character
精
Strokes14
Radical米
HSK4
FrequencyCommon — generally in the top 500 most frequent characters
精 originally meant rice that has been hulled and polished — refined grain — and from there it came to mean 'refined, fine, excellent, essence'. Learners meet it everywhere in two-character words: 精神 (spirit, energy), 精彩 (brilliant, wonderful), 精力 (vigour), 酒精 (alcohol). In Cantonese it also lives on its own as an adjective meaning 'clever, sharp, shrewd'.
Mandarinjīng · ㄐㄧㄥ
Cantonesezing1 · jīng
In 精神 the second syllable is often neutral (jīngshen) when it means 'vigour, pep'; full tone jīngshén for the noun 'spirit, mind'.
adjectiverefined, fine, choice; carefully worked (opposite of 粗 coarse)
adjectiveexcellent, superb; skilled, expert
nounessence, the concentrated or best part of something; extract
nounenergy, vital spirit; (in medicine) semen, sperm
adjectiveshrewd, clever, smart — especially common as a standalone word in Cantonese
nounspirit, goblin, demon in folklore (妖精, 狐狸精)
adverb(colloquial, after an adjective) extremely, as in 精瘦 'skinny as a rake'
How it is built
phono-semantic
Radical 米. rice, grain.
米meaning rice; points to the original sense of hulled, polished grain
青sound qīng / cing1, giving the pronunciation jīng / zing1; some commentators also read it as suggesting 'pure, clear', but that is a secondary reading
Origin
A straightforward phono-semantic compound attested in seal script: 米 'rice' for meaning plus 青 for sound. The Shuowen Jiezi glosses it as 擇米 'selected rice', i.e. grain that has been pounded and sifted until only the clean white kernels remain. The extension from 'refined rice' to 'refined, choice, essence, vital energy' is natural and happened early. The idea that 青 also contributes a sense of purity is plausible but not needed to explain the character.
Remembering it
米 (rice) + 青: rice pounded until it is clean and green-fresh white — polished, refined rice. Anything 精 has had the husk taken off: 精神 is refined energy, 精彩 is a refined performance, 酒精 is the essence drawn out of wine.
精 is rarely a free word in Mandarin — learn it inside compounds. In Cantonese it is commonly used alone: 好精 'very shrewd', 精仔 'a smart aleck', and it can carry a slightly sly edge, closer to 'cunning' than to plain 'intelligent'. Note the contrast with 粗: 精米 polished rice vs 粗糧 coarse grain. Also beware that 精神 shifts meaning with the tone of the second syllable, and that 精 alone in medical contexts means semen, so 精子/遺精 are clinical words, not casual ones.
Context
In traditional Chinese medicine 精 is one of the 'three treasures' 三寶 — 精 (essence), 氣 (qi), 神 (spirit) — the stored vitality a person is born with and spends over a lifetime. In folklore the 精 suffix marks a creature that has cultivated itself into a spirit, as with 狐狸精 the fox spirit; 妖精 still works as a half-teasing word for a bewitching woman.
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