拜
bài HSK5

pay respects

拜 bài
visit verb
to extend greetings or make a courtesy call on a specific occasion

初一早上，孩子们去给长辈拜个年。

chū​yī zǎo​shang, hái​zi men qù gěi zhǎng​bèi bài gè nián.

On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, children go to pay New Year greetings to their elders.

acknowledge verb
to formally acknowledge someone as a master, teacher, or godparent

他决定拜这位名师学习书法。

tā jué​dìng bài zhè wèi míng​shī xué​xí shū​fǎ.

He decided to take this famous master as his teacher to learn calligraphy.

appoint verb
to appoint someone to a high position through a formal ceremony

他在仪式上被拜为大将军。

tā zài yí​shì shàng bèi bài wéi dà​jiāng​jūn.

He was appointed as the Grand General in a ceremony.

bow verb
to bow to, pay one's respects, or worship

他们虔诚地向神像下拜。

tā​men qián​chéng de xiàng shén​xiàng xià bài.

They bowed piously before the idol.

honorific prefix verb
used before verbs to show politeness when referring to one's own actions regarding others

我已经拜读了您的文章。

wǒ yǐ​jīng bài dú le nín de wén​zhāng.

I have already had the privilege of reading your article.

Frequency
Character
Written text
1,218th most common 108.4 per million
Movie subtitles
469th most common 314.3 per million appears in 71% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
34.9 per million appears in 11% of films
Written text
31.1 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 4
HSK 3.0
Level 5
Strokes
9
Unicode
U+62DC

Sources
Definitions
CC-CEDICT
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)