挖 (wā) · to dig; to excavate

Meanings

1 to dig; to excavate
2 to scoop out; to gouge

Characters

挖

wā

to dig; to excavate

Examples

HSK 4

别挖鼻子。

Bié wā bízi.

Don't pick your nose.

HSK 5

他被竞争对手挖走了。

Tā bèi jìngzhēng duìshǒu wā zǒu le.

He was headhunted away by a competitor.

HSK 7-9

工人们在挖地基。

Gōngrén men zài wā dìjī.

The workers are digging the foundation.

Tips

usage

挖 is versatile: 挖坑 (dig a hole), 挖土 (dig earth), 挖鼻子 (pick one's nose), 挖人 (headhunt/poach talent). The figurative sense of 'poaching talent' is very common in business Chinese.

memory

The hand radical 扌 + 穴 (hole/cave) compressed - using your hand to dig a hole.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (left-side radical)

Three-stroke hand radical on the left - the side-form of 手. Marks 挖 as a hand-action: pulling earth out, scooping, gouging. Same radical anchors 打 hit, 拉 pull, 抓 grab, 挑 carry. The radical pins the meaning to deliberate manual work, distinguishing the digging hand of 挖 from the digging foot of 踢 'kick.'

phonetic

穵 wā

to dig out; cavity

Right side 穵 supplies the sound (wā, exact match) and the meaning. 穵 itself is a hollowed-out cave 穴 with 乙 inside - a deliberately scooped-out space. By adding the hand radical, 挖 made the active verb explicit: the hand that scoops out the cavity. Uncommon as a standalone but transparent inside 挖.