抽 (chōu): to draw out

Meanings

1 to draw out
2 to pull out
3 to smoke (cigarettes)
4 to extract

Characters

抽

chōu

to draw out; to pull; to smoke

Examples

他从口袋里抽出一张纸。

Tā cóng kǒudài lǐ chōuchū yīzhāng zhǐ.

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

你能抽出时间来吗？

Nǐ néng chōuchū shíjiān lái ma?

Can you find some time?

请不要在这里抽烟。

Qǐng búyào zài zhèlǐ chōuyān.

Please don't smoke here.

Tips

usage

抽出时间 means "to find / spare time" — as if pulling time out from a busy schedule.

usage

抽 appears in many compounds: 抽屉 (drawer), 抽象 (abstract), 抽奖 (lottery draw).

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical, left-side form of 手)

Left hand radical — the standard side-form of 手. Marks 抽 as a hand action: pulling out, drawing, extracting. Same family as 拉 to pull, 拽 to drag, 拔 to uproot, 拿 to take. The radical is the strongest pedagogical signal that any verb on this page involves manual extraction.

phonetic

由 yóu

from; via (phonetic)

Right side 由 supplies the sound — yóu drifted to chōu through a regular Old Chinese rhyme alternation, also visible in 油 yóu, 笛 dí, 轴 zhóu (the 由 phonetic series). The 'from/via' meaning is incidental, though pulling 'out from' is a handy memory hook.