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截

jié
verb HSK 7-9 #6,660

Meanings

  1. 1 to cut off
  2. 2 to stop
  3. 3 section

Examples

截止日期是明天。
Jiézhǐrìqī shì míngtiān.
The deadline is tomorrow.
请截取这一段。
Qǐng jiéqǔ zhè yí duàn.
Please cut out this section.

Tips

usage
Common in 截止 (jiézhǐ, deadline) and 截取 (jiéqǔ, to cut/extract).

Components

radical
戈 gē
dagger-axe; halberd
Halberd radical wrapping the right side — the indexing semantic. 戈 is a long-handled blade. Across the bird sits the cutting weapon, completing the picture: a creature severed by a strike. The same radical organises 战 (war), 我 (originally a weapon), 成 (accomplish, with a chopping nuance) — all weapon-action characters.
semantic
十 shí
ten; cross-shape
Top-left cross-shape — the residue of an older graph picturing a stake or weapon-head. In 截 it caps the bird below, giving the visual sense of something pinned or held in place before being cut. Standalone reads as 'ten' but here is purely graphic — one of two pieces that combine into the left half of the character.
phonetic
隹 zhuī
short-tailed bird (here phonetic + semantic)
Short-tailed bird sitting under the cap — supplies a faint zhuī → jié sound link (the rime has drifted considerably) and contributes the image of a creature being pinned and severed by the spear on the right. The bird being cut down is the iconic scene that gives 截 'cut off, intercept, section, deadline'.

Stroke Order

截 jié