查 (chá): to check

Meanings

1 to check
2 to investigate
3 to look up

Characters

查

chá

to check; to look up; to investigate

Examples

HSK 1

我查一下这个字。

Wǒ chá yíxià zhège zì.

Let me look up this character.

HSK 2

我查一下字典。

Wǒ chá yíxià zìdiǎn.

Let me check the dictionary.

HSK 3

警察在查这件事。

Jǐngchá zài chá zhè jiàn shì.

The police are investigating this matter.

Tips

usage

查 covers looking things up (in a dictionary, online), investigating (police work), and checking/inspecting (documents, tickets).

register

Two niche readings exist but never overlap with the everyday verb. As a surname, 查 is read Zhā - the writer 查良镛 (better known as 金庸) is the famous bearer. As a fruit name, 查 is a variant of 楂 in 山楂 (Chinese hawthorn) - almost always written 山楂 today. If you see 查 in a person's name, try Zhā first; everywhere else it's chá.

Components

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

Top tree radical (Kangxi #75) - the indexing radical. Originally 查 referred to a wooden raft or floating timber (the older sense preserved in the surname Zhā). The semantic drift to 'investigate, examine, look up' came via 'to inspect timber and goods' - a customs-and-trade extension. Same radical groups 林 (forest), 树 (tree), 板 (board), 桌 (table).

phonetic

旦 dàn

dawn; sunrise

Bottom phonetic 旦 - supplies the sound, shifting irregularly to chá. Pictographically 旦 depicts the sun (日) rising above the horizon (一) - dawn. Pure phonetic in 查, no semantic carryover. Same 旦 stands for 'first day' in 元旦 New Year's Day; spotting it as a phonetic component is rare but distinctive.