嘀嘀 (dī dī) — (onomatopoeia) beep beep; toot toot (sound of a…

Definition

Onomatopoeia for short electronic beeps and car-horn toots. The sound is sharp and short — not a long ringtone or sustained siren.

onomatopoeia

beep beeptoot toot (sound of a car horn or electronic device)

嘀嘀。
Wài miàn chuán lái dī dī de qì chē lǎ ba shēng.
The sound of a car horn came from outside.
嘀嘀，。
Shǒu jī dī dī xiǎng le yí xià, lái xīn xiāo xi le.
The phone went 'beep' — a new message came in.
嘀嘀。
Yóu xì lǐ měi guò yì guān dōu huì fā chū dī dī de shēng yīn.
In the game, every time you pass a level it makes a beeping sound.

Single-morpheme word

构词法gòucífǎ

拟声nǐshēngOnomatopoeia

The characters imitate a sound; their individual meanings play no part.

The repeated 嘀 imitates a beep; the characters have no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

口啇嘀

Meaning part形符xíngfú

口口kǒumouth

Sound part声符shēngfú

啇

啇dí嘀

Same sound today

嘀 uses 口 (mouth) to show it is related to the mouth, and 啇 to give the sound dí.