xiè
verb #31,216

Meanings

  1. 1 to profane
  2. 2 to disrespect
  3. 3 obscene
  4. 4 improperly familiar

Examples

Bùkě xièdú shénmíng.
One must not profane the gods.
Tā yòng xiènì de kǒuwěn gēn tā shuōhuà.
He spoke to her with an inappropriately familiar tone.

Tips

usage
rarely stands alone. You'll meet it inside compounds: 亵渎 (to blaspheme/profane), 猥亵 (obscene; to molest), 亵昵 (improperly intimate). The (clothing) component reflects its original meaning: 'underclothes' / 'home clothes,' i.e. private things, and from there, anything that crosses the line into the indecent.

Components

semantic
clothing; garment
Outer , pictograph of a robe with collar above and skirt panels below, wrapped around the inner element. Originally meant 'undergarments, intimate clothing', not to be displayed; from that came 'obscene, indecent.' Indexed under Kangxi #8 (tóu) by tradition, taken from the lid-like top strokes of .
phonetic
zhí
hold; manage
Inner sits inside the robe and supplies the sound (zhí to xiè, regular palatal drift across this phonetic series). itself pictures a hand grasping something firmly; here that imagery is incidental, though memorable: something held tightly under your clothes, exactly the indecency or private-impropriety meaning of .

Filed under radical (tóu, #8) by convention. is not a separate component in , so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order

xiè