扎 (zhá): to struggle (only as the second…

Meanings

1 to struggle (only as the second syllable of 挣扎)

Characters

扎

zhá

to struggle (only as the second syllable of 挣扎)

Examples

鱼在网里挣扎，却逃不出来。

Yú zài wǎng lǐ zhēngzhá, què táo bù chūlái.

The fish struggled in the net but couldn't get free.

他们在贫困线下苦苦挣扎。

Tāmen zài pínkùnxiàn xià kǔkǔ zhēngzhá.

Living below the poverty line, they struggle daily.

Tips

register

The zhá reading exists for one purpose only: the second syllable of 挣扎 (to struggle, physically or metaphorically). You never see 扎 standalone, and no other compound uses this reading. If you see the bigram 挣扎 — read zhēngzhá. If 扎 stands alone or pairs with anything else, it's almost certainly zhā (default verb) or zā (tie / bind).

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form of 手)

Left-side hand radical, the side form of 手. Anchors 扎 in the manual-action family — pricking, tying, struggling are all things hands do. Same radical drives 打 (hit), 拉 (pull), 扔 (throw). Provides essentially all the meaning while the right side just suggests sound and shape.

phonetic

乚 yǐ

hidden; second (variant of 乙)

Right side is a single hooked stroke — a variant of 乙. The phonetic role is rough (yǐ → zhā, the readings drifted heavily) so today 乚 functions more as a graphic anchor than a real sound clue. Same shape ends 礼, 札, 乳.