催 (cuī) · to urge, to press, to rush (someone)

Meanings

1 to urge
2 to press
3 to rush (someone)

Characters

催

cuī

to urge; to press

Examples

HSK 3

妈妈一直催我快点出门。

Māma yìzhí cuī wǒ kuàidiǎn chūmén.

Mom keeps urging me to leave quickly.

HSK 3

别催我，我马上就好。

Bié cuī wǒ, wǒ mǎshàng jiù hǎo.

Don't rush me; I'll be ready soon.

HSK 5

老板催着要报告。

Lǎobǎn cuī zhe yào bàogào.

The boss is pressing for the report.

Tips

usage

催 is very common in daily life. 催人 means to rush someone, 催债 means to press for debt repayment, and 催婚 means to pressure someone to get married (a common topic in Chinese families).

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (left-side form of 人)

Person radical on the left - the indexing semantic. 催 is to urge, hurry, press someone; the action is one person doing something to another, so the 亻 fits directly. Joins the human-interaction family: 促 (urge - near-synonym), 使 (cause), 仰 (look up to), 借 (borrow from) - all interpersonal verbs labeled by the person on the left.

phonetic

崔 cuī

high; surname (here phonetic)

Right component supplies the sound: cuī → cuī, exact match. 崔 itself is 山 (mountain) over 隹 (bird), originally meaning 'high, towering', now best known as a common surname (e.g. Choi in Korean). As a phonetic it also drives 摧 cuī (destroy) - a small but exact-rime family.