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折

zhē / zhé / shé
verb #4,804

Meanings

  1. 1 to turn over; to tip over; to pour from one container to another
  2. 2 (used in 折腾) to toss about; to make a fuss; to keep redoing

Examples

把热水在两个杯子里折一折，就凉了。
Bǎ rèshuǐ zài liǎngge bēizi lǐ zhē yi zhē, jiù liáng le.
Pour the hot water back and forth between the cups to cool it down.
你别再折腾我了，我累死了。
Nǐ bié zài zhēteng wǒ le, wǒ lèi sǐ le.
Don't toss me about anymore — I'm exhausted.
小孩在床上折跟头。
Xiǎohái zài chuángshàng zhē gēntou.
The kid was doing somersaults on the bed.

Tips

usage
The zhē reading is fully colloquial and motion-heavy: think "flip it back and forth." Its star compound is 折腾 — by far the most useful word in this reading. It can mean: (1) toss and turn in bed; (2) keep redoing the same thing; (3) put someone through the wringer; (4) waste energy on pointless effort. Steve Jobs-style "stay foolish" energy: 瞎折腾 = pointless faffing about.
memory
Quick rule for the three readings: if the verb describes a controlled action (zhé), a clean snap or business loss (shé), or chaotic back-and-forth motion (zhē), the tone matches the energy: rising zhé for the calm fold, rising-high shé for the sudden break, and flat zhē for the back-and-forth tossing.

Components

radical
扌 shǒu
hand (left-side radical)
Left hand radical — three strokes, the compressed left-side form of 手. Anchors 折 in the verbs-of-the-hand family alongside 打 (hit), 拿 (take), 推 (push), 抓 (grab). Sets the action: a hand doing something to wood — specifically, here, a hand swinging an axe.
semantic
斤 jīn
axe; catty
Right axe component — pictograph of a hafted axe-head (the same 斤 used as a weight unit, 'catty', because axes were once standard weights). Compound ideograph: hand (扌) + axe (斤) = breaking wood with a blade, hence 'to break, snap, fold'. From the snap-an-arrow image came 'discount' (a deduction = a snapped-off piece) and 'setback' (something broken).

Stroke Order

折 zhē