shuā
verb HSK 4 #3,768

Meanings

  1. 1 to brush; to scrub
  2. 2 to paint; to apply
  3. 3 to swipe (a card); to scroll (on a phone)

Examples

Nǐ shuākǎ háishi fù xiànjīn?
Will you swipe your card or pay cash?
Qiáng xūyào chóngxīn shuā yí biàn.
The wall needs to be painted again.
Bié zǒngshì shuā shǒujī le!
Stop scrolling on your phone!

Tips

culture
手机 (to scroll your phone) and 视频 (to scroll short videos) are modern slang. 刷卡 (swipe a card) covers both bank cards and transit cards.
register
A rare reading shuà means 'to select / pick out' and survives in dialectal ('pale, ashen'). Standard everyday use is shuā throughout.

Components

radical
dāo
knife; blade (radical)
Right radical is the side form of , the indexing radical for . Scrubbing involves no real blade; the knife stands for any sharp, repetitive scraping against a surface. The same radical drives , , , .
semantic
shī
body; reclining figure (semantic)
Top-left is a person leaning forward, here a body bent over a task: scrubbing, sweeping, brushing. With the cloth underneath, the picture is someone hunched over with a wiping rag in hand.
semantic
jīn
cloth; rag (semantic)
Lower-left is a hanging cloth or rag, the cleaning tool itself. Tucked under the body it pictures the wipe-cloth being applied. The same component is the brushy element in and .

Stroke Order

shuā