ZHIZHI 知止 · LEARN CHINESE DAILY

hundred

bǎi
6 strokes · 一 (one) + 白 (white, sound) — one on top of the count · HSK 2

Where 百 comes from

百 caps 白 (the sound bái) with 一: a numeral built by borrowing a sound and stacking a stroke. Big round numbers came late to writing everywhere — Chinese solved it with elegant recycling.

百 in Chinese culture

百 is a hundred and, culturally, 'all of them': 百姓 ('the hundred surnames' — the common people), 百货 (department store: 'hundred goods'), 百分之百 (100% — total certainty). The classic child's primer 百家姓 lists the Hundred Family Names; 百度 (Baidu) took its name from a Song-dynasty line about searching for someone 'hundreds and thousands of times'. In Chinese, when you mean everyone and everything, you say a hundred.

Example

百分之百 bǎi fēn zhī bǎi — one hundred percent

这本书一百块钱。
Zhè běn shū yìbǎi kuài qián.
This book costs one hundred yuan.

How to remember it

One 一 stacked on white 白 — count to a HUNDRED.

百姓 'hundred surnames' = ordinary people; the real list (百家姓) actually contains over 500 surnames — rounding was generous.

Same sound, different tones

2nd bái
white
3rd bǎi
hundred
4th bài
to salute / visit

Words unlocked by 百

一百 yìbǎi
one hundred
百姓 bǎixìng
common people
百分之百 bǎi fēn zhī bǎi
100%
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