伸 (shēn): to stretch

Meanings

1 to stretch
2 to extend
3 to reach out

Characters

伸

shēn

to stretch; to extend; to straighten

Examples

他伸出手来和我握手。

Tā shēnchū shǒu lái hé wǒ wòshǒu.

He reached out his hand to shake hands with me.

起床后先伸个懒腰。

Qǐchuáng hòu xiān shēn gè lǎnyāo.

After getting up, stretch first.

小猫伸出了爪子。

Xiǎo māo shēnchū le zhǎozi.

The kitten extended its claws.

Tips

usage

伸手 (shēn shǒu) = reach out a hand. 伸懒腰 (shēn lǎnyāo) = stretch (after waking). 伸展 (shēnzhǎn) = to stretch/extend.

mistakes

Don't confuse 伸 (shēn, to extend) with 申 (shēn, to state/apply). Same pronunciation but different characters and meanings.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (left-side form of 人)

Left-side 亻 is the standing-person radical, the compressed form of 人. It marks 伸 as something a person does with the body — stretching, extending, reaching out. Same family as 体, 休, 你, 他.

phonetic

申 shēn

to state; extend

Right-side 申 gives both the sound (shēn → shēn, no shift) and faint semantic flavour: 申 originally pictured a lightning bolt extending across the sky, and its later sense 'to state' implies extending speech outward. The body-extension meaning of 伸 grew from that stretching image.