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散

sàn / sǎn
verb HSK 4 #3,104

Meanings

  1. 1 to scatter; to disperse
  2. 2 to break up (a meeting, crowd)
  3. 3 to give off; to emit; to spread (heat, smell, news)

Examples

出去散散步吧。
Chūqù sàn sàn bù ba.
Let's go for a walk.
会议散了。
Huìyì sàn le.
The meeting is over.
人群四散了。
Rénqún sìsàn le.
The crowd scattered in all directions.

Tips

usage
The sàn reading is the verb reading — the action of scattering, dispersing, ending. High-frequency compounds: 散步 (take a walk, the daily Chinese leisure ritual), 解散 (disband, dissolve), 分散 (scatter, distract), 扩散 (spread, diffuse), 散发 (emit, give off), 散心 (clear one's head). Read sàn whenever 散 is a transitive or intransitive verb.
memory
Visual mnemonic: left side is meat being pulled apart (the obscure top + flesh radical ⺼ below); right side is the strike radical 攵 — a hand swinging a stick. So 散 literally pictures a blow that breaks something into scattered pieces. The verb reading sàn keeps the violence: dispersing crowds, breaking up meetings, smashing apart.

Components

radical
攵 pū
tap; strike (radical form)
Right strike radical — the indexing component, side-form of 攴. Pictures a hand swinging a stick. Combined with the torn-flesh element on the left, the picture is a blow that breaks something into scattered pieces — the core image of 'to scatter, disperse.'
semantic
⺼ ròu
flesh; meat (radical form)
Left side fuses an obscure top element with the meat-flesh radical ⺼ underneath. Traditional analysis: torn pieces of flesh — the top etymon and lower ⺼ together depict meat being pulled apart. Modern strokes have fused them into a single 8-stroke unit; standalone ⺼ is only 4 strokes.

Stroke Order

散 sàn