zuǒ
noun #6,384

Meanings

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

Examples

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

Tips

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

Components

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

Stroke Order

zuǒ