佐

zuǒ
noun #6,384

Meanings

  1. 1 assistant
  2. 2 aide
  3. 3 to assist

Examples

HSK 6
Tā shì jiāngjūn de zuǒ guān.
He is the general's aide.
HSK 6
Zuǒliào kěyǐ ràng cài gèng hǎochī.
Condiments can make dishes tastier.

Tips

usage
佐 is most commonly seen in 佐料 (zuǒliào, condiments/seasoning) in daily life. In Japanese names, 佐 appears frequently (e.g., 佐藤 Satō).

Components

radical
亻 rén
person (radical form of 人)
Left-side person radical, the side form of 人. 佐 means 'to assist', naturally a person-radical character, since assisting is something a human does for another. Same radical drives 仗 (rely on), 伴 (companion), 协 (cooperate via 十). Pairs cleanly with the right-side phonetic.
phonetic
左 zuǒ
left
Right side 左 (left) supplies the sound (zuǒ → zuǒ, identical). Faintly semantic too: in classical Chinese, 左 had the verbal sense of 'to assist' (an aide stood on the master's left), so 佐 essentially preserves an older meaning of 左 by pinning it to a person. Phono-semantic with surprisingly tight semantics.

Stroke Order

佐 zuǒ