划 (huà): to plan; to map out

Meanings

1 to plan; to map out
2 to delimit; to demarcate; to assign
3 to draw (a line); to mark
4 to transfer (funds, jurisdiction)
5 stroke of a Chinese character

Characters

Left 戈 (dagger-axe) + right 刂 (knife) — two cutting tools side by side, picturing a blade scoring a line: the act of marking out, demarcating, planning.

Examples

你对未来有什么计划？

Nǐ duì wèilái yǒu shénme jìhuà?

What are your plans for the future?

老师在黑板上划了一条线。

Lǎoshī zài hēibǎn shàng huà le yī tiáo xiàn.

The teacher drew a line on the blackboard.

省被划分为五个行政区。

Shěng bèi huàfēn wéi wǔ gè xíngzhèngqū.

The province was divided into five administrative districts.

Tips

usage

Use huà for any 'plan / delimit / draw-a-line' sense: 计划 (plan), 规划 (to map out), 策划 (to plan / scheme), 划分 (to divide), 划定 (to delimit), 划时代 (epoch-making), 下划线 (underscore). For rowing, scratching, striking matches, and 'worthwhile', switch to the huá reading.

mistakes

Don't confuse huà with 画 (to draw / a painting). Both sound identical and both involve marks on paper, but 画 is for pictures and 划 is for marking out lines, boundaries, or plans. 'A painting' is 画; 'a plan' is 划.

Components

radical

刂 dāo

knife

Knife radical on the right — the standing form of 刀 with two strokes. The indexing radical, contributing the cutting / dividing meaning. Same radical heads 利 (sharp), 刚 (just), 刻 (carve), 别 (separate). Here knife + dagger-axe yields 'to mark or divide with a blade'.

semantic

戈 gē

dagger-axe

戈 on the left — pictures a hooked dagger-axe. Together with the knife on the right, it puts 划 in the family of cutting/marking tools: scratching a line, drawing a stroke, demarcating a plan. From that came both the stroke-of-a-paddle sense (划船 to row) and the planning sense (计划, 划分).