把 (bà): handle

Meanings

1 handle
2 grip; hilt

Characters

把

bà

handle

Examples

刀把断了。

Dāobà duàn le.

The knife handle broke.

他握住锅把，把锅端了起来。

Tā wòzhù guō bà, bǎ guō duān le qǐlái.

He gripped the pot handle and lifted the pot up.

这把儿太短了，握不稳。

Zhè bà r tài duǎn le, wò bù wěn.

This handle is too short — you can't grip it firmly.

Tips

usage

The bà reading is the concrete-noun cousin of bǎ. It names the physical handle of a tool or vessel and appears almost always as the second syllable in compounds: 刀把 (knife hilt), 锅把 (pot handle), 枪把儿 (gun butt). The erhua form 把儿 is standalone-friendly in spoken Beijing speech.

mistakes

Don't confuse bà with the much more common bǎ. Same character, two readings: bǎ runs the grammar (verb "grasp", classifier, object-marker preposition) while bà names the physical handle of a tool or vessel. A handful of handle-words still take bǎ by convention — 把柄 (leverage on someone) and 把手 (door knob, grip) — so trust the entry's pinyin over the rule of thumb.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form of 手)

Left hand radical (side-form of 手) — anchors 把 as a hand action. Original sense: to grasp, to take hold of. From the grip came the noun handle and the classifier for tools you grasp (一把刀 a knife). Family: 打 (hit), 拉 (pull), 抓 (grab), 推 (push).

phonetic

巴 bā

snake; cling

Right 巴 supplies the sound (bā → bǎ, just a tone shift). 巴 originally pictured a coiled snake; its grip-and-cling imagery faintly reinforces the grasping meaning of 把. Same phonetic in 爸 (dad), 吧 (particle), 疤 (scar).