削 (xiāo) · to peel; to pare (with a knife)

Meanings

1 to peel; to pare (with a knife)
2 to whittle; to shave off
3 to cut (a ball, in tennis or table tennis)

Characters

削

xiāo

to peel; to whittle

Examples

HSK 2

帮我削一个苹果。

Bāng wǒ xiāo yí gè píngguǒ.

Peel an apple for me.

HSK 3

他在削铅笔。

Tā zài xiāo qiānbǐ.

He's sharpening a pencil.

HSK 5

刀削面是山西的特色。

Dāoxiāomiàn shì Shānxī de tèsè.

Knife-shaved noodles are a Shanxi specialty.

Tips

mistakes

削 has two readings. The everyday xiāo is the physical action of paring with a blade: 削皮 (to peel), 削铅笔 (to sharpen a pencil), 刀削面 (knife-shaved noodles). The literary xuē is the abstract 'reduce / strip away': 削减, 削弱, 剥削.

culture

In gaming slang 被削了 (using the xuē reading) means a character got nerfed, their abilities 'shaved down' by the developers. Every patch-note discussion uses this word.

Components

radical

刂 dāo

knife

刂 is the right-side form of 刀 (knife). It marks 削 as a cutting action and groups it with 切, 剪, 割 under the blade-action umbrella.

phonetic

肖 xiāo

resemble; small

肖 gives the sound xiāo directly, with the secondary reading xiào (resemblance). The 'small / diminished' flavour also sneaks into 削: to pare down or shave off material until something is reduced. Same phonetic in 消 (dissolve) and 销 (melt down).