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嚼

jiáo / jué
verb HSK 7-9 #4,826

Meanings

  1. 1 to chew
  2. 2 to munch

Examples

吃饭要细嚼慢咽。
Chīfàn yào xì jiáo màn yàn.
When eating, you should chew carefully and swallow slowly.
他在嚼口香糖。
Tā zài jiáo kǒuxiāngtáng.
He is chewing gum.

Tips

mistakes
The character 嚼 has two main readings. Everyday speech uses jiáo for the act of chewing (嚼 口香糖, to chew gum). The literary reading jué appears in the formal word 咀嚼 (to masticate; to mull over), which has its own entry. A third reading jiào survives only in the rare 倒嚼 (of cattle: to chew the cud).
memory
The mouth radical 口 sits on the left, which makes sense: chewing is the prototypical thing the mouth does to food.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Mouth radical on the left, the indexing radical, marking 嚼 as a mouth action. To 嚼 is to chew, the prototypical thing the mouth does to food. Family: 吃 (eat), 喝 (drink), 咬 (bite), 吞 (swallow). Doing semantic work, not just classifying.
phonetic
爵 jué
ceremonial wine cup; rank (here phonetic)
Right 爵 supplies the sound. The reading jué drifted to jiáo in everyday speech, while the original jué survives in the literary 咀嚼. 爵 itself depicts a three-legged ritual wine vessel; the link to chewing is purely phonetic. 嚼 has no other common 爵 siblings, so it stands alone.

Stroke Order

嚼 jiáo