搁 (gē): to put; to place

Meanings

1 to put; to place
2 to set aside; to shelve

Characters

搁

gē/gé

to put; to place; to shelve

Examples

把书搁在桌子上吧。

Bǎ shū gē zài zhuōzi shàng ba.

Put the book on the table.

这件事先搁一搁。

Zhè jiàn shìxiān gē yì gē.

Let's set this matter aside for now.

饭菜搁久了就不好吃了。

Fàncài gē jiǔ le jiù bùhǎo chī le.

Food doesn't taste good if it sits too long.

Tips

register

搁 is more colloquial than 放 (fàng, to put). It's very common in northern Chinese dialects. 搁 also implies leaving something for a while — 搁着 means 'to leave sitting there.' The internet phrase 搁这儿搁这儿呢 (gē zhèr gē zhèr ne) is a playful expression of disbelief.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand

扌 is the hand radical 手 in left-side form. It marks 搁 as a manual action, joining 放拿摆推 — characters where the hand does the verb. Setting something down with care is an action of placing.

phonetic

阁 gé

pavilion; cabinet

阁 supplies the sound (gé drifted to gē) and a faint sense of putting away on a shelf — cabinets hold things stored aside. Combined with the hand radical, the character pictures the hand-action of setting items down on storage.