shěn
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 to smile (literary)
  2. 2 to smile derisively; to sneer (literary)

Examples

Fūzǐ hé shěn yóu yě?
Why did the Master smile at Zilu?

Tips

history
rarely stands alone in modern Chinese; it survives in the polite formula ('kindly accept this trifle') and the dismissive ('to sneer'). The example is the famous 《论语》 line about Confucius smiling at his disciple Zilu. The mouth radical marks the expression; 西 supplies the sound.
register
Literary. Everyday speech says or 嘲笑; stays in formal and classical writing.

Components

radical
kǒu
mouth
(mouth) is the indexing radical, marking as a facial expression made with the mouth, a smile or a scornful grin.
phonetic
西
phonetic element
西 supplies the sound for , with the reading drifting noticeably from its source; it carries no meaning here.

Stroke Order

shěn