割 (gē): to cut; to sever

Meanings

1 to cut; to sever
2 to reap; to mow

Characters

割

gē

to cut; to sever

Examples

他不小心割破了手指。

Tā bù xiǎoxīn gēpò le shǒuzhǐ.

He accidentally cut his finger.

农民在割麦子。

Nóngmín zài gē màizi.

The farmers are reaping wheat.

用刀把绳子割断。

Yòng dāo bǎ shéngzi gēduàn.

Cut the rope with a knife.

Tips

usage

割韭菜 ('to cut leeks') is a hugely popular internet slang meaning 'to fleece people' or 'to harvest suckers.' It comes from how leeks grow back after being cut — scammers and companies keep coming back to exploit the same naive consumers.

Components

radical

刂 dāo

knife (right-side variant)

Right indexing radical 刂 (knife-variant of 刀) — anchors 割 in the cutting domain. Most cutting verbs live here: 切 (cut), 划 (slash), 剪 (scissor-cut), 刮 (scrape), 削 (peel). The two strokes resemble a vertical blade poised to slice.

phonetic

害 hài

harm (here phonetic)

Left component 害 supplies the sound (hài → gē, drifted velars in the same series — closer in older Chinese than modern Mandarin suggests). Bonus semantic: 害 means 'harm,' which fits 割's 'cutting' nicely. Same phonetic in 辖 (govern), 瞎 (blind), and the near-cousin 豁 (split open).