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切

qiē / qiè
verb HSK 4 #1,617

Meanings

  1. 1 to cut; to slice
  2. 2 to carve
  3. 3 tangent (math)

Examples

HSK 1
请帮我切一下菜。
Qǐng bāng wǒ qiē yīxià cài.
Please help me cut the vegetables.
HSK 4
把西瓜切成八块。
Bǎ xīguā qiē chéng bā kuài.
Cut the watermelon into eight pieces.
HSK 4
画一条圆的切线。
Huà yī tiáo yuán de qiēxiàn.
Draw a tangent line to the circle.

Tips

usage
qiē is the physical-cutting reading: blade meets object. Use it for kitchen verbs (切菜, 切片, 切丝), surgical and industrial cutting (切除, 切割), the math 'tangent' (切线), and most foreign-name transliterations (切尔诺贝利, 撒切尔). The secondary reading 切 covers abstract 'close / eager / urgent' compounds - see that entry.
memory
Picture the knife 刀 on the right going 切! - onomatopoeia for the chop. Concrete blade = qiē. When the same character means 'pressed close / urgent' it shifts to qiè - no knife sound, just intimate contact.

Components

radical
刀 dāo
knife
Right knife radical - the indexing radical, picturing a curved blade. Marks 切 as a cutting action. Same family as 分, 剪, 划. The figurative readings 'close to, eager' (qiè) come from a blade pressed close against its target - intimate contact, which is why the secondary reading shifts to abstract proximity.
phonetic
七 qī
seven
Left 七 supplies the sound: qī → qiē / qiè with only a tone shift. The numerical 'seven' meaning is irrelevant here - pure sound carrier. Together with the knife on the right, the picture is 'a knife producing the qī-sound', the rasping noise of cutting.

Stroke Order

切 qiē